


Satis

by LoneSardine



Category: Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister
Genre: Autistic Bernard, Bittersweet, But eventual happy ending, I’m only cruel because I love him, M/M, Poor Bernard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2020-03-24
Packaged: 2020-11-26 20:04:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 47,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20935973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LoneSardine/pseuds/LoneSardine
Summary: Bernard is satisfied with his life.He loves both Sir Humphrey and Jim Hacker, even if they’re just using him for sex. Neither complains about him having an arrangement with the other, although that may be because they haven’t found out yet. And having dual loyalties in his personal life is no worse than having them at work, though every bit as emotionally torn.Bernard is satisfied with his life, so he tells himself.





	1. Mandarin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since this starts back early in Bernard's civil service career it's the mid 1960s to be clear. Bernard's in his mid-20s, and Humphrey's in his mid/late-30s as well as not being knighted yet.
> 
> I headcanon Bernard as undiagnosed autistic (I wrote my reasoning and more detailed thoughts on [my Tumblr](https://milsmill.tumblr.com/post/188190565634/satis-chapter-1)) It's not a big deal either way but I think it fits his character, honestly.
> 
> There are some notes on the more obscure British/historical references at the end of the chapter.

It is a year or two into his career in the civil service, just long enough for reality to have worn the unrealistic shine off his dream, and Bernard becomes infinitely grateful for the existence of ‘gaydar’.

He always eats alone in the civil service canteen – Almost more of a military mess hall, really, it could be said – in order to avoid the conversations of the other civil servants and all their linguistic mistakes. That and he was never invited to join any of them, that too.

One particularly busy lunch though, he knows it in the drop of his growling stomach that he will have to put up with the company of someone.

Sitting defensively in one of the outer seats of the most private, still-empty table he can find, Bernard prays whomever he ends up with will simply be there to also eat quietly and leave this chattering bedlam for the safe retreat of official replies, proofread speeches and administrative act subsections- God, no wonder no one ever wants to eat with him.

He’s only more surprised therefore by the person that finally does stop at his tableside.

That dark brown hair like the wool on a sheep and strangely soft, cheerful face with only the smile showing the wolf hiding beneath it all, “May I sit here?” Mr. Appleby asks with a politeness he really doesn’t need to have.

“Oh, sir-! Um, Mr. Appleby, sir!” Bernard actually gets up to pull the other chair out but thankfully Mr. Appleby saves him from himself. “O-Of course.” He sinks with flustered shame, too afraid his hands have become as useless as his tongue to continue eating. Looking up at that smile, he really tries not to blush.

“You’re one of the flyers, aren’t you?” Mr. Appleby says after seating himself. “I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me but your name is slipping my mind at the moment.”

Bernard gives his name, but can’t help thinking how much of a ‘high-flyer’ can he really be in that case. Swallowing dryly as he realises he has no idea what to say, he opts to return to eating, trying not to look too nervously eager.

Cutting uneasily into the awkward silence, almost as if he worries Bernard prefers it, “I’m afraid you’ll have to forgive me again, but your tie...”Mr. Appleby trails off, indicating.

Bernard looks down too; black with pairs of thin red and yellow stripes. “Ah. Mansfield. Oxford,” he supplies.

“Of course.” A self-deprecating chuckle. The amusement isn’t exactly easy, but it’s easier.

“In your defence it’s one of the smallest colleges.” Bernard smiles with him. “Its only reputation is for having the best food of all the Oxford colleges.”

“Merited?”

“By the standard of college cuisine at least.” He tries to recall the name of that college that orders great quantities of one ingredient at a time and so every meal for a week ends up featuring it. He’s always liked that little fact, something about the nutritional efficiency of giving you your year’s worth of apples in a week, your mushrooms for the year the next... Realising he’s said nothing and still can’t recall the name though, “T-There’s a cat,” Bernard stammers out. “A-At Mansfield there’s this cat. Erasmus. He lives loose in the dorms.” Well done. The dumbest possible subject to pick. “If he comes to stay in your room they say it means you’ll do well on any upcoming exams.” If you’re going to ramble see it through, he supposes. Might as well make a thorough fool of yourself.

“Erasmus?” Mr. Appleby sounds mercifully intrigued. Bernard is staring down into his half-eaten poached salmon. “He was the one who said, “When I get a little money I buy books; and if any is left, I buy food and clothes.”” Bernard finally looks up at the relaxing amusement; someone with Mr. Appleby’s reputation doesn’t deserve to have eyes that warm. “Shame there aren’t more people like him in the Treasury.” Nor such an easy laugh.

This time Bernard grins, but he doesn’t understand the full reason why just yet.

Another few lunches, ones less busy Bernard notes, they talk again in similar vein. It could never be mistaken for a friendship, only the phatic and safe conversation of political functions and the ilk; Bernard had always thought himself dreadful at such small talk, but he starts to suppose that maybe he can’t be that bad if Mr. Appleby keeps coming back.

It’s not until a happenstance after-work drink when delivering some paperwork to the other man that Bernard understands what’s going on.

At first he’s only further confused by Mr. Appleby steering the conversation around to suits, and then an even stranger diversion to buttonholes. But then he says it, “I think a green carnation would suit you,” trying to catch Bernard’s eye, “wouldn’t it?”

Bernard drops his gaze instantly, heavy with a guilty blush of fear, not only unwilling but unable to make eye contact – Childhood scolding repeats in his head about the juvenile trait he really should have grown out of at some point, surely – until the patiently lingering silence finally drags his gaze, a criminal awaiting the judge’s sentence, as high as it can go to Mr. Appleby’s face.

He is smiling an easy smile that says it’s okay, and after a moment Bernard realises why.

Bernard is infinitely grateful for the existence of ‘gaydar’.

~#~

They never speak about it.

They don’t speak after that at all unless it’s civil or necessary. No further lunches or after-work drinks.

Bernard wonders if Mr. Appleby has all he wanted now. Had his interest only been a matter of verification, of information-gathering? Information is power after all, although why Mr. Appleby feels the need to gather any further power over someone as lowly as Bernard is beyond him.

But then the opportunities start coming.

They’re not legs up, not by any means. Actually the worst kind of work, in a way: Difficult to draft replies, file compilations to make on particularly obscure aspects of the DAA’s remit, creative adjustments to outstandingly ornery figures...

Bernard barely manages. But he does, enough that Mr. Appleby is apparently ordered to come and personally commend him by the Permanent Secretary – Gosh, that means the Permanent Secretary knows who he is!

“He was interested in where you see yourself, if and when you finally rise from the rabble to a proper station in this department,” Mr. Appleby says of the Permanent Secretary after the commendations are done with. Bernard wonders if he really said that, or once again he’s merely being ‘verified’. “The permanent or private office?”

“Ah, well, I’m not much of a people-person,” Bernard excuses awkwardly, “so I doubt I’d be much use in the private office.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” he brushes off easily. “It’s rather charitable to call ministers ‘people’; most politicians are more a collection of vain neuroses, loosely held together by copious amounts of alcohol and fear.” Bernard doesn’t laugh with him, but does smile along. “No, I’d think that would be a strength really – It’s called the ‘private’ office for a reason. Those of a gregarious disposition rarely make good private secretaries.”

“Oh.” Bernard sips at his coffee, although his nerves are already jittery enough as it is. “Well, in that case, yes. Perhaps something like diary secretary.” He likes order and logistics, creating neatly written plans and records, maybe making everyone else as punctual as he has always been.

Mr. Appleby merely gives one of his brief, maybe slightly mocking, chuckles. “An unenviable position, my dear boy; you’ll be at the mercy of every public crank that thinks they deserve a minister’s very limited and valuable time. And he’ll always want to go on whatever marginal constituency junket his party wants him to attend. You’ll make yourself no friends as diary secretary.” He shakes his head, drinking from his sherry with a satisfied sound.

“Well,” Bernard doesn’t know if he’s meant to defend himself, but he can’t help doing so anyway, “as I see it, whom the minister sees determines what he sees, as it were.” He takes a pause as one of Mr. Appleby’s eyebrows rises in surprised intrigue, then presses on more keenly, “The minister is the one who ultimately weighs and judges all matters, but scales can only weigh what you put into them.” Now Mr. Appleby is starting to smile. So Bernard does as well. “With his diary decided for him, a minister isn’t even aware of the possible sources of information out there on issues to know what he doesn’t know. Only the diary secretary knows. So... well... it’s a rather powerful position, isn’t it?” His voice has dropped rather conspiratorially by the end.

He knows he has said the right thing as Mr. Appleby all but grins.

They happen into each other more after that. Only utterly acceptable coincidences, of course. The wide-ranging chats of before resume, even if they are kept short to appear professional. They dine or drink together, and Bernard is reminded distinctly of one of the few psychology facts he knows that eating together is an inherently socially unifying behaviour for humans.

One time Mr. Appleby finds him reading _Private Eye _for lonely entertainment as he lunches. Although he would later find out he didn’t need to justify it, at the time he’d stammered something along the lines that, “Newspapers are like politicians – You know, reacting instantly to every little thing with whatever emotion they think will get them the biggest number of voters or readers, even if they don’t have all the facts. Since _Private Eye _only comes out fortnightly, taking a more balanced and accurate view, it’s more like a civil servant, don’t you think?” Whatever it had been, Mr. Appleby had given him a small but rich chuckle and asked if there were any good stories in this one.

Bernard feels they are moving towards something with all these interactions. Or perhaps he’s simply hoping so strongly that he’s fooling himself. Whatever it is doesn’t seem to actually be coming.

He’s managed to convince himself it’s all nothing at all by the time he gets called to Mr. Appleby’s office one day for a private meeting.

~#~

5:45pm. The halls Bernard has walked through on the way there are quiet, the whole building settling down silently with its secrets for another night as his shoes click uncomfortably loud on its tiled floors.

Mr. Appleby is packing up his briefcase as Bernard arrives, something that throws up new questions about what this meeting is about if not work. He hugs his own briefcase to him, coat equally awkward tangled up in the folded arms of the hug. Licking his lips dryly, Bernard simply studies the floor and waits.

Being told he can set his things down and take a seat in the small conversation area is actually no mercy, leaving him feeling utterly defenceless as Mr. Appleby sits down opposite with a, “Bernard,” that has far too much gravitas. He holds his breath as it continues, “Your reputation as a high-flyer is well-deserved; you have considerable potential, and even more importantly _soundness_.” He’s too frozen to even respond with the socially appropriate gratitude; where’s the ‘but’? “I don’t suppose you’ve heard about the change coming.”

“Change?” A change? That word being spoken by a civil servant of all people?

But no. Then Mr. Appleby wouldn’t be looking at him with such a bittersweet expression. He looks almost... lonely. “They’re finally going to decriminalise it.”

“What?”

Now he’s reached the point of naivety that makes Mr. Appleby roll his eyes upwards for a moment in despair of him. With an air of ‘if he must say it’, “Homosexual intercourse,” he clarifies.

“Oh!” He knows he must be blushing terribly- But wait then, is this conversation-?

“Given your... junior nature,” Bernard wonders why he was kind enough to put it so diplomatically, “I thought it best to advise you it won’t change the fact it must be kept secret, what it would do to a career here.”

Mr. Appleby is... warning him? Bernard’s sure any such advice is sensible but, “I don’t want to be ashamed of... _it_.” A little voice in his head asks him why he can’t even say it then. “If it’s not illegal anymore-”

“You should not be ashamed of it,” he is interrupted. “To be ashamed would be tacit admission. And all they will be doing is removing the penalties; don’t believe this is any form of protection.”

“I can accept that, but I don’t want to lie.” He sounds too bitter.

In return he actually gets an almost kindly smile. “Bernard, do you believe it is anyone else’s business what your _inclination _is?”

“No.”

“That it should affect matters one way or the other?”

“No,” he says certainly.

“Then, though I do appreciate your singular devotion to honesty, why must the matter be discussed at all?” he poses. After a settling moment in which to ponder, “Say nothing when the time comes. When people voice their disagreement and disgust, when people celebrate, when people ask you what you think – Say nothing that can be interpreted in any way.”

Not lying, but not telling the truth either; that’s what this repealing will amount to morally. He’d allowed his hopes to get away from him yet again, as ever. “Be a civil servant, you mean?” he jokes therefore in response to the advice, perhaps understanding the bittersweet smile Mr. Appleby started with.

And the other man genuinely laughs. It’s a sound Bernard realises he wants to hear many times in his future.

Dropping to a fond chuckle, “Oh Bernard...” There’s another sound he wants to hear many times, his voice said like that by Mr. Appleby.

Oh no.

Oh no, this is just like his secondary school History teacher all over again. And his first-year Greek tutor at Oxford. And the college librarian. His foolish, ever-hoping heart-

“Bernard?” The interruption snaps his attention back, although with no idea if he’s missed anything. He nods, shuffling about on the edge of his chair where he’s been all conversation so far. “...What I’m about to say,” Mr. Appleby begins slowly, “I will not be saying as your superior at work. Do you understand? It’s simply another part of a conversation that has never taken place.”

“Um, yes,” Bernard understands. Sometimes he wonders how anything ever gets done in Whitehall when so few conversations actually take place.

Mr. Appleby nods, reaching for the sherry on the small side table between them to pour himself a glass. He holds the bottle in gesture to Bernard besides another empty glass, but Bernard shakes his head. Tilting his eyebrows in slight surprise, Mr. Appleby accepts. “I am about to make you an offer that can have no bearing on our professional lives, positive or negative. You cannot expect any special treatment because of it, but you are also at complete liberty to refuse me at any time.” Even Bernard, as extraordinarily naive as he will admit he can be, isn’t foolish enough to believe those words; they’re both too human. But he also knows Mr. Appleby is a gentleman who will honour the intent as far as could be considered possible. “I would like to propose, if you are favourable to it, a discreet and mutually beneficial arrangement of extracurricular association for the purpose of corporal, and one may even be so bold as to say, concupiscent satisfaction.”

Bernard is struck dumb, a little gaping even. Oh, he understands what it all means, but not what it all _means_. Why is Mr. Appleby seeking such an arrangement with him of all people? What will it entail? What happens if he refuses? What happens if he dares accept?

In the end his foolish and ever-hoping heart makes him simply nod.

And Mr. Appleby simply nods too. “In that case, you will need to get married.”

“Married?” Bernard can’t help a small grin quirking one corner of his mouth. “I didn’t realise you were so traditional, to insist on marriage first.”

“Not to me, Bernard,” Mr. Appleby says with a sharpness that tells him what foolish taste his joke had been in. “In order to minimise suspicion you must marry first, to a woman. My wife can help find someone suitable.”

Bernard glances to Mr. Appleby’s unadorned left ring finger, but his heart is already sunk anyway. Is it too late to back out already? “But I don’t want to- I mean, it’s too cruel to marry someone who...”

“No, no.” At least a little of the former warmth has returned to Mr. Appleby’s voice. “Such a marriage would indeed be improper, and more to the point unwise given its danger of collapse should the real circumstances be realised. Instead you find a lady of a similar predicament, one for whom the arrangement suits in equal measure.”

This time Bernard does blank on the meaning for a moment, before realising, “Oh! You mean a- a woman who’s also...” He blushes at the thought of it for some reason.

“Yes. As I say, my wife will know someone most likely.” Oh, then his wife was also- “All the two of you need be is compatible enough to cohabit and occasionally put on the facade of happily married life should social engagements demand it.”

A partner, but in deception rather than a nuptial sense. His conscience could live with that. And, as much as he hates doing things for appearances, for the sake of his career. Perhaps hers as well; it would be nice if he could help some poor girl in equivalent circumstances to his. So Bernard supposes that, well, “Um... All right.”

~#~

A dinner is arranged, one of Mr. Appleby’s favourite but little-known places in the city not far from Whitehall. It’s not him that Bernard is to meet however, and it’s all he can do not to jump from his seat at every woman who walks in; it’s his own fault, far too punctual as usual and paying the price of having to sit awkwardly alone. At least the restaurant has had the grace to seat him at a rather private table, perhaps Mr. Appleby’s doing.

And at least this isn’t some awful ‘blind date’ scenario; he chuckles to himself at the thought of what Mr. Appleby would make of such a ‘commoner’s practice’ as he likely sees it.

Bernard doesn’t even realise his guest is here until she’s sitting down in the opposite seat at their table; she’s certainly far and away discreet and poised enough to be Mr. Appleby’s wife.

Not like the embarrassed, slightly stammering mess he becomes as he attempts to introduce himself. Thank God she waves off such formalities as unnecessary.

Letting her lead, she begins a conversation on a number of inoffensively polite subjects, introducing a new one with grace each time they run out of phatic pleasantries to fill the silence until their mains have been served. It’s only in retrospective that Bernard realises the conversation was a part of the whole thing, a feeling out of his personality and interests. He almost can’t be jealous anymore she’s so perfect to be Mr. Appleby’s wife.

Once they have been left alone with their main courses, the questions he actually realises are part of what they’re here for this evening begin.

The whole thing feels like a job interview, and in a way Bernard begins to suppose that it is; this will be more like a business transaction than anything, two people providing needed benefits for one another and having to tolerate each other’s existence and foibles to do so.

She begins by asking what sort of partner _he_ will be – Is this what women mean, talking about objectification? Feeling like his only value is what he can provide to others rather than being asked what he wants? Women who have no need to please men are scary, he decides – and in the end seems satisfied he at least has enough worth for her to proceed.

Now she asks what he’s looking for, but in a way that again makes him feel this is for the benefit of whatever poor friend of hers is going to get lumbered with him.

“Well, um... I don’t really like social occasions. Not at all, actually,” he picks first. She nods thankfully. “I like having my home be a sanctuary. So someone who wouldn’t bring friends home often either.” She doesn’t nod this time. He begins to stammer and flail, selecting of all things, “Someone who use language correctly; I really can’t stand it when... um...” Blushing badly, he downs too much of his wine glass in one go to be polite.

Across from him her face has taken on a slightly odd expression, paused in thought he’d guess if positive or unable to believe his ridiculous requests if negative. “...Do you like museums?” she finally says.

“Museums?” He dumbly stares for a moment, before getting out, “Y-Yes. I like museums. My favourite places to go out, when I do, are museums. I, um... Why?”

She considers him a moment longer before saying, “That’s all I need.”

Nothing more is said on the matter the remainder of the meal. Bernard lets her lead again with polite conversation to fill the silence occasionally until they are finished and he pays in gratitude for her time this evening.

She only says one further thing to him of note, outside the restaurant in the most private moment before they part ways: “You’re not what I would have expected Humphrey to pick, I must say. The way he talks about you is very interesting.” If she sees the panic in his eyes about what that means, she doesn’t stay to assuage it.

A week later he is back at the same restaurant where he is introduced to a peculiar woman called Jo – Although had she been the one narrating the meeting he can’t help thinking she would have described it as being introduced to a peculiar man called Bernard – and is excepted to enjoy a meal in this stranger’s company. Mr. Appleby and his wife are there, awfully like chaperones for him to impress, and will be dining across the restaurant before heading out to the opera together. Will that be what his life is like soon? What is he letting himself get into?

The awkward silence once their orders are taken proves Jo is not the socialite conversationalist Mr. Appleby’s wife was. But instead, thankfully, after a long moment she says, “Can we agree small talk is a horrendous social convention and talk about something interesting instead? Do you like the Ancient Greeks?” and Bernard begins to think this might work after all.

~#~

They marry at a registry office, not even bringing their own witnesses. Both of their parents know the true story, and everyone involved is sensible enough not to want to waste money.

Finding a house together – She works at the V&A, is on the way to climbing the ranks to be a curator there someday, so somewhere quiet in commuter country suits them both – and then moving in takes all his time and attention for a while.

Where Bernard is a pedant about words, he quickly discovers she is about positioning: Put something back an inch off from its perfect location or angle and she would deliberately say it rubs her hackles the wrong way, and then that she could care less about using the right phrase (which, while attempting to be inaccurate, was actually accurate because she did obviously care about using it incorrectly to annoy him and thus could care less).

He stops putting things back in the wrong place very quickly.

When he finally has the free time to spend with Mr. Appleby again he seems to very much approve of a junior museum curator, if Bernard insists on a working wife, and of course any friend of his wife’s is of the required standard for these things. Bernard leaves out her mischief and streak of cheekiness that probably wouldn’t be as approved of; Mr. Appleby might start to think she is a bad influence (which she is. But, well, guilty pleasures and all that.)

Almost too deliberately they get into a good routine, her handling the smaller everyday chores while he takes the larger tasks on his weekend off. Not needing to be in love on top of all the things a new couple has to sort out makes it easier somehow.

The whole thing also earns him a very interesting conversation with Mr. Appleby one day: “Has the subject of children come up?”

“Children?” Bernard tries not to splutter on his drink slightly with the small laugh that wants to escape.

“You know, mothers looking to relive their glory days, regain a degree of relevance.” He gestures with an ‘et cetera’ motion. Bernard stays quiet, too fascinated. “If either of your parents start, simply say the other is infertile; emphasise that, alas, you would love to provide them with some snotty, little toe rags but unforeseeable misfortune has befallen you. Make out you consider the whole thing very tragic and personal, and so forth, and hopefully they should never bring the matter up again.”

“Did the matter come up for you?” he can’t help but ask, foolishly personal as it may be.

“Yes,” Mr. Appleby admits with a degree of disdain. “But now her parents think that I’m infertile, and mine think that she is, and all of them consider the subject too embarrassing to ever bring up.” He glances at Bernard, who is amused but also a little mortified at the subject.

And speaking of issues now dealt with, Bernard finds himself waiting impatiently for what this had all been about in the first place. Of course it was at Mr. Appleby’s more experienced discretion to direct though.

But he really has been waiting far too long when murmured words in his ear one late evening check when his wife will next be out of the house visiting her girlfriend so Bernard could have a visitor of his own.

~#~

Mr. Appleby simply comes home with him the evening they have appointed. Most fortunately, they happen to catch their trains at the same station and platform, simply at different times; the same track to start but a different destination. Mr. Appleby has with him the small overnight case of any businessman going on or returning from an overnight trip, but otherwise all else is as ordinary as possible.

They try to affect the air of two business associates, one of whom has invited the other home to discuss the their day job further, as they walk together along the autumn sunset lanes of Bernard’s village; Mr. Appleby of course plays his part perfectly – and of course Bernard doesn’t – but whether that’s from pure natural skill or practice Bernard can’t say.

The rather secluded cottage they arrive at isn’t discussed, although Bernard does see Mr. Appleby looking at the poor state the previous owners have left the garden in with a critical disdain. Almost an amusing one really; he doesn’t seem the gardening type.

Bernard lets them in, focusing on removing his coat with trembling and clumsy fingers while keeping his back turned for safety. He hears the front door shut behind him, and he never would have thought it possible to feel so trapped inside his own house. Shoes next, ignoring the quiet sounds of footsteps moving up behind him. He tries to remove his suit jacket as he always does to keep it neat but- “Bernard.”

Swallowing, he turns around to heed the call. He knows he only has one arm of the jacket removed, the other still on, and looks utterly stupid for it.

Mr. Appleby’s patient smile confirms it, fond with exasperation. “What are you like?” he chucklingly tuts in the tone one would normally only use with a pet.

For all his embarrassment as he’s helped out of the rest of it, hearing Mr. Appleby use a slightly lower class phrase like that, the sort he’d never use at work, makes Bernard pleasantly flush. “Sh-Should we-? D-Do you want to have dinner first or, um... If you want to-”

He’s pressed back against the wall of his front hall by Mr. Appleby kissing his stupid mouth quiet. Their first kiss is simply to get him to shut up. He can feel it means nothing at all to Mr. Appleby, unlike all of Bernard’s hopes.

“You’ll have to forgive my eagerness; it’s been a while,” Mr. Appleby says upon pulling back, one hand travelling over the outline of Bernard’s chest with the heat of their skin easily passing through the single layer of cotton. Bernard is shocked enough to stare into those very, very brown eyes, searching desperately but losing everything into that unique colour. He’s watching therefore when one of Mr. Appleby’s eyebrows rises in question. It’s only the voice that startles him back into remembering his own existence though. “Although I do intend to most likely become very familiar with the way to your bedroom, you will have to show me this first time, Bernard.”

Oh. While he does love the way Mr. Appleby is currently smiling, pleased with his joke and also having the privacy to share it with Bernard, something inside him hurts a little too much. Bruised hopes perhaps.

Swallowing and stammering a moment as he’s allowed off the wall, “If you’ll... Shoes,” he can’t believe he commands as he makes his way to the stairs so Mr. Appleby can follow.

His command is followed with that same amused, personal smile, and even the coat too, before Bernard leads the way up the plain, wooden staircase. Nervous apologies about the boxes still to unpack are not given reply. Neither do his comments about what each room will eventually be produce any interest he can hear; it’s fine, they’re only for his own anxious benefit anyway.

In the room selected to be Bernard’s bedroom, the most shaded and isolated-feeling, he gestures Mr. Appleby in and then stands there fretting over the tidiness of the room he already cleaned twice this morning, and once last night.

“Red oak...” Mr. Appleby’s finger trails along the footboard of his bed; “it suits you.” Bernard looks around the matching furniture set which is nearly all that makes the room feel less empty currently, unsure what he’s meant to say. “Are you all right to proceed?” is asked with genuine concern.

“Huh?” Bernard really hates how he gapes sometimes. “Oh. Yes.” Like a good, little puppy he comes to heel; the level of his submissiveness really is horrendously awkward for both of them, and he knows it, but still can’t seem to do a blasted thing about it.

Mr. Appleby smiles as he cups Bernard’s face together with an encouraging, softening kiss. Bernard decides his best bet is to shut up and try to be less of an embarrassing wreck, giving himself completely to it.

The lights stay off, only sunset casting everything in copper and long shadows as he’s gently guided through the slow removal of their clothes on his bed, further kisses and secure caresses softening him into the sheets. He still tenses at the first press of fingers trying to enter his body but they wait patiently, clinical murmurs in his ear explaining his nerves to him in a way that makes Bernard not hate himself for them for the first time in his life. He is treated nothing but carefully, and clings to the body above him, surprisingly slim and effeminate now stripped down to just a human being beneath it all.

The golden light has cast Mr. Appleby in a stark and melancholic outline above him, only the edges of hair and contours lit like he’s been gilded while the rest is lost in shadow. Bernard reaches with one hand to his face, “You’re beautiful...” the slight dimples where his fingertips are resting bringing new light onto the cheeks.

There’s a warmth along Mr. Appleby’s cheekbones, too shaded to see as a slight blush, and he turns aside; maybe this is the one area of his life where Mr. Appleby speaks more with his actions than words. “You... You should turn over; you’ll be more comfortable,” he says quietly.

Bernard expects to regret it as he complies, settling with only a pillow to hug instead, but first Mr. Appleby further takes care to make sure he is relaxed ready for this, slick fingers prying him willingly open, and then he feels the warmth of that body pressed to his back. The sheer warmth and firmness, enveloping his body both outside and then in. He doesn’t even need the arm that slips its way under his waist, pulling him gently in time.

For the first time in his adult life he is freed from his thoughts, able to live only in sensations: The hands taking care of his body, the brushing of chest hair on his back, the rich, matured scent of Mr. Appleby after a day of work. It can’t last forever, is the first thought that sneaks its way back in. This overwhelming feeling of love. He wants it to last forever. How can it be anything but pure love?

The heat that is spilled deep inside him, the lips on his neck, the slightly raised pitch of Mr. Appleby’s struggling breath. Bernard cries with the happy intensity of it, feeling like it’s so much more than what he had at university even though in reality it’s so much less. He stifles the tears into the pillow in his arms, wanting to pretend.

Mr. Appleby sees though, “Bernard? Did I harm you?”

What’s the most socially acceptable thing to say? He needs to get as far away from the truth as possible. “No, it’s just... been a while,” he feigns, forcing out a believable smile he’s proud of.

With both done, they are lying side-by-side now. It’s a foolish position as it lets Bernard lean over, initiating a kiss for the first time; he holds it long enough to make it sexual, so he won’t get in trouble. Mr. Appleby is surprised but responds, settling down with perhaps the smallest chuckle as Bernard tucks his head into his neck, clinging desperately to the other man’s body. There is no objection to the cuddling, to Bernard trying to keep every possible inch of skin futilely in contact as his dried tears brush off on the side of Mr. Appleby’s neck.

Bernard is reminded of what one of his lovers at university said, that he was very bad at having sex because he was only capable of making love.

Soon Mr. Appleby will ask about that dinner he mentioned, volunteer to help Bernard unpack his boxed books onto the starkly empty shelves of his bedroom and eventually will suggest an early night which just leads to more tears all over again.

But for now Bernard merely clings to him so happy to finally be in what must be true love, wilfully ignoring the awkward and niggling seed that plants itself in the back of his mind ready to begin growing.

~#~

Functional and pragmatic. Bernard normally likes those words, wishes more people were those things.

But before long he’s bent over a desk with his trousers around his ankles getting fucked by Mr. Appleby, and Bernard is the happiest he’s ever been in his civil service career; this arrangement is anything but functional and pragmatic when it could destroy so much.

Yet that’s all it is somehow at the same time. Bernard wants so much he can’t have because of those words. The coolness and formality Mr. Appleby treats him with at work for example, sitting in different carriages on the same train when they go home together, an end to their work lunches in favour of dinners in privacy; it’s all so sensible Bernard can’t even justify to himself why he wants anything else.

And surely he gets what he wants in private. When he accidentally leaves the stuffed fox he sleeps with when alone out on his bed and has to introduce Basil to Mr. Appleby, receiving that utterly amused and fond smile in return, isn’t that all he wants?

Mr. Appleby doesn’t say anything though. Bernard realises it’s all the smiles that find him exasperating and cute and worth all the trouble he is, so many of them without ever any comments. He makes Mr. Appleby smile, and laugh, and happy, but Mr. Appleby never says anything about it. That’s what that seed in the back of his mind – The one he still and promises to always wilfully ignore – has grown into.

It’s so vexing, how the most eloquent and verbose person he has ever encountered says so many things but never the ones Bernard wants.

But, as noted, he ignores that and always will.

Bernard watches homosexual intercourse be decriminalised, men land on the Moon and Mr. Appleby become Sir Humphrey and permanent secretary of the DAA. So he can’t help thinking one day anything could be possible.

He even becomes the minister’s principal private secretary: The previous incumbent falls intermittently ill and Bernard finds himself covering the gap. Intermittently ill is revealed to be terminally ill, and no one can think of an objection to Sir Humphrey promoting Bernard to permanently fill the role for their next minister despite the latter’s young age. With the coming election predicted to swing to an opposition so long out of power the new minister will have no experience either; it’s the perfect time to train up a new boy.

Anything is possible, he still repeats that to himself. Sir Humphrey remains as fond of him over time as they both grow more fully into themselves in that way of middle-aged adults; that in itself is enough of a miracle.

It’s not love. But it is enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the stuff Bernard says about Oxford colleges at the start is true nowadays (or was when I was there a few years ago) but obviously wouldn't have been in the 60s therefore, it just seemed too interesting not to include. And Erasmus was very fond of my room for the short time I was there; he's very cute.  
Green carnations were worn by followers of Oscar Wilde's as a secret sign of homosexuality.  
Homosexual intercourse between consenting adult men was only decriminalised in the UK in 1967, so the start of this story is set before that. I took a lot of inspiration for this story from reading what it was like for gay men in politics and those sorts of spheres back then.  
The V&A, as it is known in the UK, is the Victoria and Albert Museum in London is an art museum, one of the biggest in the world and one of the highest renowned in the country.


	2. Minx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In celebration of yet another Brexit delay - This wouldn't happen under Jim's rule as PM, I tell you - here's chapter 2!
> 
> Where Humphrey is subtle and erudite even in bed, Jim is... not. So therefore I’ve had to put the rating for this fic up to Explicit, all because of the Rt. Hon James Hacker MP.

Jim Hacker. As his first minister to play principal private secretary to Bernard can find very little to complain about. If anything, there’s plenty to give thanks for.

Jim listens to and respects him (well, as much as any politician could be expected to), obeys when it comes to his diary arrangements and red boxes (well, again as much as could be expected to) and most of all seems to truly appreciate the work Bernard does for him. Sure, Jim may not always appreciate his little jokes or split loyalties – and Bernard might equally wish the minister was a little less given to reaching for alcohol as the response to every problem, triumph and time the clock strikes 5pm – but compared to the beastly stories he’s heard, he and Jim could almost be, well... friends.

They’re not though. That much is evident when, during the department’s self-imposed economy drive – Which Sir Humphrey at least has the grace to forewarn him will only be a temporary state – the minister walks into the gents’ bathroom while Bernard is already making use of it.

Bernard doesn’t thankfully look quite close enough at Jim’s face to notice if his gaze flicks down at any point, instead focusing on apologising, “I’m sorry, Minister. It’s just with the- What with-” and, well, finishing his _business_.

After a shocked moment of near-stillness Jim’s eyes go anywhere but the urinals Bernard is standing before, choosing to investigate some apparently fascinating parts of the upper wall grouting. “No, no! I guess even you civil servants need to-” Jim gestures without looking, before coughing. “We’re all human, and all that.”

Fumbling with his zip that has to catch now of all times, “Yes, Minister.”

Now Jim looks at him, after a small eye roll and tut. “Then why won’t you still call me Jim?”

Bernard grins as he moves to wash his hands. “Because I think you like it, Minister.” He makes enough eye contact to see something flash in Jim’s eyes, before turning his attention to the sink instead so he can hurry and leave. (Civil servants may apparently be ‘human, and all that’, but politicians don’t seem eager to show the same.)

He gives Jim his privacy, returning to the overworked private office with suit jacket off and tie loose. He fancies Jim’s gazes linger a little longer than usual on him after that encounter in the bathroom, but perhaps the minister is simply tired.

~#~

Though they may not be friends their relationship certainly could be described as ‘friendly’.

Jim seems nothing but glad to find out once a month he’ll be having lunch with Bernard to prepare for Parliamentary Questions – Although it may not be the lunch itself he looks forward to so much as the chance to stand up and be the centre of attention for the entire House of Commons – and is eagerly ready to follow to the private dining room when the time for their first lunch comes.

The minister seems slightly perturbed when he finds out the engagement will mainly involve Bernard quizzing him on the correct answers he should have learnt though. “Why weren’t they labelled better if they’re this important?” he grumps like a petulant child after his third soft rebuke from Bernard in a row.

“They were. The folder was at the top of your second red box last weekend, and I even attached a small note to the front explaining its purpose since I knew it would be your first time-”

“But you didn’t mention anywhere in that note the answers would be ones I’d be delivering in public, and broadcast on the radio even!” Jim says, tone already bouncing back up just at the thought of the publicity of it all.

Bernard files away the fact he can apparently raise (or indeed lower) the priority of anything in the minister’s red boxes by making mention of how much public attention he will receive over it. For now, “Well, we should be all right this time; no one in your party will yet have adjusted to their jobs any better than you have, Minister, and the opposition can’t really ask anything critical because you haven’t done anything yet so, well, they’d only be criticising themselves from when they were in power, in effect.”

“What do you mean I haven’t done anything yet?” Jim huffs, drawing himself up.

“Oh, no. I didn’t mean- Of course you have achieved many, uh, decisions, Minister,” Bernard puts it. “It’s just that they’re still being implemented; the effects of them can’t yet be seen.”

“You mean, it doesn’t look like I’ve achieved anything?” he begins to worry now, biting on the tines of his fork in a way that makes Bernard’s own teeth wince. “Do you think that’s what the public think too? The economy drive looked good though, didn’t it? And... and, um...”

Before the minister can fret himself into a further panic, “Minister,” Bernard encourages, starting to wonder if he should change his official job description to ‘babysitter’. “Minister... How many civil servants does it take to change a light bulb?”

The non sequiter does at least snap Jim out of his building funk. “What?”

“45: One to change the bulb, 44 to do the paperwork,” Bernard supplies with a little grin, waiting until Jim gives a small laugh.

“What’s that got to do with anything, Bernard?”

“Nothing. I was just trying to cheer you up, Minister.” Now, after a moment for that to sink in, Jim laughs more fully; it’s hard to tell if it’s at the joke or the notion of Bernard trying to cheer him up with it. “Here,” he continues, back on subject; “if you want some extra time to go over them again I can reduce tomorrow morning’s meeting with the health services reorganisation committee from half an hour down to fifteen minutes – The only important thing is that you meet with them to get them off the department’s back. If anything, the less time we give the less they’ll be able to trap us into promising to do, so it’s a win-win really.”

“Why do I have to meet with them at all?” Jim complains petulantly, back on full form with his attention on the Parliamentary Questions prep sheets. “Surely it’s a Department of Health matter?”

“Well, it could be. But since it concerns reorganisation it could also be argued to be an administrative matter. It depends how you want to view it.”

“And why do they want to view it this way?” Jim asks, looking over his reading glasses briefly at Bernard.

“They’re passing the buck,” he replies honestly. “The private healthcare lobby has got at the committee to lean on the government to start outsourcing non-essential healthcare jobs like cooking and cleaning to the private sector.”

“Sounds very enterprising,” Jim says. “Also gets the cost of the damn things off our books.”

“Yes...” Bernard hedges. “But it all depends if you want to go down in history as the government that sold out the NHS.”

“Ah... Yes... Can’t we make the meeting ten minutes?” Jim haggles. “Or maybe five?”

Bernard smiles. “Fifteen is the minimum we can go to without appearing to be insulting them, Minister.”

“They ought to be insulted, trying to ruin this government’s image like that. Bloody private outsourcing... reorganisational... health group.” With a quick clearing of his throat to return to more important matters, “Am I going to be asked all of these questions in the House?”

“No, Minister. These ones right at the top are guaranteed, but the rest are just the potential supplementary questions we think you _could _be asked; it would only be a selection of the supplementary ones.”

“What selection of them?”

It really was like explaining a rainforest to an Inuit. “We don’t know, Minister,” Bernard says patiently. “These are just all the ones we think you could potentially be asked. It would only be a small number in actuality.”

“But I still have to learn all the answers?”

“Well, it might be hard to deliver an answer you don’t know.” Watching how heavily that makes Jim sigh, “Jonathan puts them all in order, Minister; the ones you’re most likely to be asked are at the top of the first page, moving down to less likely and so on.”

“Who’s Jonathan?”

“He’s one of my assistants in the private office. His job is preparing your parliamentary question answers each month.”

“That’s it? His whole job?”

“Yes. Answering Parliamentary Questions is one of your main responsibilities for the department; it’s one of the only ways for everyone else to find out what we’re doing and ask awkward questions. So it’s imperative to have the right answers ready. Trying to guess what everyone outside the department knows and what they’ll therefore want to ask is an incredibly difficult job.”

“Trying to guess what everyone inside this department knows so I can ask _them_ questions is just as difficult,” Jim jokes a little cynically, and Bernard appreciates it with a small smile. “I guess he’s a bit like that Greek Oracle lady.”

“Pythia?” Bernard brightens instantly. “The Oracle of Delphi,” he clarifies for the LSE-educated. “Yes, it is rather like that, although I don’t think Jonathan does it by inhaling hallucinogenic vapours.”

Jim lets out an incredulous little laugh as Bernard grins at the idea. Covering his mouth briefly with his handkerchief to regain composure, “Good Lord, I just had the image of a whole room of Whitehall mandarins high on LSD...” Jim murmurs, turning to see if Bernard finds it equally funny. “What do you think civil servants hallucinate about?”

“Lucy in the sky with a diamond trade agreement?” Bernard offers.

“Strawberry field farm quotas forever?”

“Travelling down to the land of subsections in a yellow sub-paragraph?”

They’re laughing terribly, almost giggling, as the door of the private dining room opens, admitting a rather perturbed and then suspicious-looking Frank Weisel. “So this is where you’ve gotten to. Jim, I need you to-”

“Oh Frank, I’m having lunch with Bernard,” Jim complains plainly, gesturing at the half-eaten meals in front of him and Bernard.

“This is important! I’ve been working on a proposal for-”

“Later, Frank!” Jim insists, voice turning clipped enough at the end to show he’s serious. “Bernard and I are discussing important matters.”

Frank draws himself up to his full height, casting an accusatory glare out from under his lowered eyebrows at Bernard. “Oh yes?” he says. “I must say it sounded very important when I came in, the two of you laughing away like hyenas. Answer me this, Jim: If it’s so important, why wasn’t I invited to the meeting?”

“Because it’s nothing to do with you; we’re going over Parliamentary Questions I’ll be answering on behalf of the department.”

“I see. Filling your head so full of answers there’s no room for questions.”

“What do you mean? It’ll be the other people asking all the questions.”

“It will be if you let _them _have their way,” Frank says, indicating Bernard and implying the whole rest of the civil service. “I bet you’re just learning what they want you to say by rote! Are you questioning any of these answers you’ll be giving, that you’ll be associated with forever more?”

A doubtful edge creeps into how Jim is regarding the answer sheets in front of him. “Well... I wouldn’t even know how to question the... EEC CAP subsidy reforms,” he picks slowly at random off the sheet.

“Exactly!” Frank seizes like the Holy Grail of proof.

“Be reasonable, Frank,” Jim retorts; “I have to trust them on some things.”

“But they want you to trust them on everything! Let me have a copy of the answers so _I _can prepare them for you; that way they’ll be what you want them to say, not whatever that principal little manipulative upstart over there wants you to,” he says, pointing once again at Bernard.

A cool stiffness comes into Jim’s posture, drawing himself up again with his reading glasses on but his gaze fixed on Frank. “_Will_ they be what I want them to say? Or will they be what _you_ want me to say?” he asks, tone growing clipped again. “I don’t particularly care for your insinuations, Frank,” Jim says, speaking over Frank’s attempt at an answer, “and I don’t care for the appalling way you just spoke to Bernard. Leave us, Frank.”

“But Jim-”

“Leave!”

Growing surly, Frank pulls himself back to assess the situation and begrudgingly leave for now. “Very well. Sorry for interrupting your little _lunch date_,” he emphasises the last two words as he heads for the door. “Just make sure you make him pay for the meal, if you’re going to let him screw you over later.”

Jim is left agog as Frank leaves, and just about ready to jump out of his seat and go after him, but, “Minister,” Bernard’s soft voice calls him back, turning his attention from the closed door. “It’s all right. You don’t need to defend me like that,” he says through his bright pink blush about the whole thing.

“Of course I do! The bloody nerve he’s got on him sometimes...”

“I’ve had worse, Minister,” Bernard reassures him. “It’s part of the job- Or, um. Well, it’s been part of mine because I, uh... C-Comparatively, that little joke at the end was rather funny really,” he stammers awkwardly as he flails for the right thing to say. “That is, not- I didn’t mean- Highly inappropriate but, um, rather-”

“Bernard,” Jim calms him down, and Bernard does shut up even if his cheeks still look likely to combust any moment. “...Although if I were going to let any of my civil servants dine and bed me it would be you,” he can’t resist adding.

Bernard’s mouth hangs.

And Jim grins at him after a moment to show he’s just joking.

“Minister, please,” Bernard coughs politely, all ruffled up like a very flustered flamingo. “Shall we get on with the Parliamentary Questions?”

Jim holds his gaze and grin for a moment longer before, “Oh, I suppose. If we must,” he realises he can’t tempt Bernard back into it. He does shoot a quick raise of his eyebrows before Bernard can completely settle back down though.

It’s a gesture that stays on Bernard’s mind, not just through that lunch or even just that afternoon.

There had been something there, some secret message. Bernard almost doesn’t dare wonder what it was.

~#~

One evening Bernard glances up as the door from the private office to the minister’s opens; it’s only a very weary-looking Jim however. “Do you need something, Minister?” He sets down his pen and gathers himself to stand ready, smiling.

Jim waves him to sit back down though, simply coming with a slow gait to drag one of the currently spare chairs from Lloyd’s desk round to sit at the corner of Bernard’s, across perpendicular from its owner.

Bernard takes the odd behaviour in stride, as is his duty to, finishing the paragraph’s revisions before he looks up again. He hesitates this time, enquiring but respectful. Jim doesn’t look at him, but when Bernard feels he has got the message anyway he continues with his revisions until he hears a excruciatingly pitiful sigh.

“Why did you look so glad to see me just then when I came out, Bernard?” Jim asks, morose in a way that makes Bernard suspect he’s been at the whisky already.

Well, maybe he deserves it this evening. “It’s my job to help you, Minister. Thus I always want you to tell me how I can help.”

After a moment’s further staring into his own lap, Jim finally looks up at him. It truly is almost painful how sad he looks. “Lately I’m starting to feel like you’re the only one truly on my side, Bernard,” he begins heavily, hating the words he has to say. “Even Frank is...”

Bernard summons a deep breath. “Your political advisor can be rather... forthright with his advice, shall we say, Minister.”

“‘Forthright’?” Jim laughs mirthlessly. “If Frank gets any more ‘forthright’ he’ll be attaching puppet strings to my wrists.” Bernard smiles, setting down his pen as Jim leans one elbow on the edge of Bernard’s desk to rest his head on. The information about Weisel is filed away under things Sir Humphrey will definitely be interested to hear, but for now Bernard simply listens. “It was all right when I was in opposition, but ever since I became a cabinet minister I’m starting to think the scent of second-hand power is going to Frank’s head.” He sighs again, a little more tolerably this time. Glancing around the otherwise empty Private Office, the thought strikes him, “Are we the only ones left?”

Bernard launches into, “Well, Mrs. MacKay goes home at five. Lloyd is at an interdepartmental-” Jim glances at him too tiredly for this. “Yes, no one else is here, Minister. Or will be coming back. Until tomorrow that is,” Bernard finds himself saying haltingly. And his mouth is suddenly dry for some reason.

“Good,” Jim says before sitting back, staring up at the ceiling distantly. “Is this job meant to be as impossible as I’m finding it, Bernard? Or am I just that useless?”

“‘Impossible’?”

“Ohh... All the DAA work along with votes at the House, party business and so forth...” Jim lists off wearily. “I’m beginning to feel like it’s impossible to do this job properly, or even adequately. It’s really quite depressing.”

“Oh. Minister,” Bernard begins with a rather earnest plaintiveness, his eyebrows tilting down at the end in true concern. “I’m sorry. This is only my first time as a PPS so I can only apologise if my inexperience-”

“It’s not your fault, Bernard,” Jim cuts him off with a little chuckle. “I’m starting to think it’s just designed that way, you know. Deliberately.”

This time Bernard’s eyebrows rise at the suspicious tone creeping into the minister’s tone and expression. “Oh. No. I’m sure that- I mean, how could it be? Your predecessors surely would have done something if that were the case, Minister.”

“Unless they were so incapacitated that they couldn’t,” Jim points out with a similar paranoid tone, before sighing out, “Or I really am just completely useless after all...”

“Minister...”

The sincere, little plea lifts Jim’s head back up to Bernard’s waiting face; he really does look sympathetically pained, if at his usual loss for something there isn’t protocol for. “The one thing I am quite sure of in all of this is that the only reason I’m even coping at all is because of you, Bernard.” The surprised blush that produces really is very endearing. “I was reading my political biographies just before the election, you know – Keeps one occupied and all that – and Disraeli mentioned the private secretary really is the key coupling when you’re in office.” He chuckles. “You really must be careful, Bernard; get too useful and I won’t know how to cope without you.”

“Oh, Minister,” Bernard gushes out sheepishly, clearing his throat more from propriety than any physical need. He is truly glad Jim is staring down at the glint of his wedding ring as he fiddles with it; the current amount Bernard is blushing couldn’t be ignored even by a minister as good natured as Jim.

“...I get very lonely down here in London sometimes,” Jim begins with a distance to his voice similar to his distracted gaze. “Annie doesn’t want to give up her charity work, you see? I don’t really want her to either – A minister with a public-serving wife looks very good to the public.” Bernard keeps his face schooled as Jim glances over briefly with his little ‘lesson’. “But she complains about having to come down to London one day just to go back up the constituency the next. And she says there’s nothing to do down here. It’s not true; there’s any number of things for a person to do in London. But I know what she means. She never really was the ‘housewife’ type... It’s why I like her, you know?”

Bernard hears the question mark, but can only gape a little without any idea how to respond to that. It’s really far too personal, too subjective; not civil servant territory at all. But he’s the minister’s principal _private _secretary, and perhaps this could be considered a private matter he’s meant to assist with?

The hesitance finally brings Jim to look back up properly at Bernard. At first it’s inquisitive, one eyebrow raised in waiting. But then it settles into a grin that utterly blanks Bernard’s mind.

The minister glances around the empty private office, pausing comfortably in the silence of the DAA around them. Then he places both elbows on Bernard’s desk so he can lean in on them only a foot or so across from Bernard’s face. “I must confess I never really understood what Disraeli meant, saying, ‘Relations between the Minister and his Private Secretary are, or should be, among the finest that can subsist between two individuals, except for the married state.’ I mean, it seems utterly daft, an employee being almost like a wife.”

Jim tries to hold his gaze. Bernard does his usual trick of looking at the face in front of him without looking directly into the minister’s blue-grey eyes. He tries to focus above the nose, without following it down to Jim’s thin, pink lips. He fails.

The moment between them has stretched out a very long time, a ridiculously long time for two men in their position. The fact that neither of them has moved or said anything therefore...

Bernard isn’t surprised when Jim closes the distance between them, kissing him.

It’s quiet and comfortable, and Bernard allows himself to kiss back for a moment before pulling away to say, “Not here and now, Minister. This may be called the ‘private’ office but-”

“I understand. I-I just wanted to...” The minister is actually flustered. For once in his life, Bernard has rendered the other party the flustered one.

And he hasn’t said no.

He really doesn’t want to examine why he isn’t saying no.

~#~

It really went awfully well for something so awkward.

Nothing else happens before Jim insists on telling Annie. And he does it with incredible ease; the next time she makes the trip down to the London flat, Bernard is invited round on some obviously spurious pretext to watch the minister tell his wife, “Bernard’s very loyal to me, and he’s really rather cute. Would it be okay if I were to... If we...?”

That, and Jim’s rather child-like, naughty grin, are enough for her to grasp, “Engage in some _stress relief_?” in an amused tone.

“Only when you and I are apart,” Jim assures her.

“Go ahead even if we’re not,” Annie actually says; “I wouldn’t mind the extra sleep.”

They start to playfully bicker. “You make it sound like a chore!”

“Well, sometimes it does start to feel a little like one...”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh darling. I don’t mind making love now and then but you know I can’t keep up with your needs.”

“Are you saying I’m needy?”

“Only in a hyphenated sense.” Jim looks dubious. “You have needs, Jim; I accept that. And I know it’s been a long time since you’ve been able to be with a man.” Now Mrs. Hacker turns to Bernard, still stood beside all this like a very awkward soldier at attention. “I hope you’re prepared to keep up with my husband, Bernard.” He stammers, reply-less. “Don’t worry; I know you’re not going to steal my Jim from me,” she says as if she’s been joking with him. “With anyone else I might worry. But I trust you.”

She trusts him? She and Jim really are perfectly suited for each other.

Bernard doesn’t tell his own wife, not for a while at least. He doesn’t know how to get Jo to understand it when even he still doesn’t himself.

She does give him a look once he does, one he really deserves, but then also just accepts it as he has.

He was rather hoping she might ask him those questions he still has no good answer to.

~#~

They snatch kisses at work sometimes. Or Jim’s hands will slip under Bernard’s suit jacket to places they both really want them to go. They’re deliberately teasing themselves, enjoying the most wonderful part that is the anticipation of it.

But Bernard still goes home with Sir Humphrey regularly, as per their established rules and patterns; it would be stranger not to after all.

Pressed down into the sheets and mattress of Sir Humphrey’s bed, what if he can taste the minister on Bernard’s lips? Will he notice the unusual cologne? Did Jim leave marks earlier when he grabbed Bernard’s waist to pull him close and-

“Bernard?” Sir Humphrey has pulled back, one eyebrow raised in intrigued concern. “Is something the matter?”

What does Bernard have to be concerned about? “Um... Well- It’s just how close we came, you know, to losing the department,” he lies well, he hopes. It was only yesterday after all.

“But we didn’t.” At least Sir Humphrey is in a playful mood, teasing one of Bernard’s ears with a finger as he speaks. “Thanks to you remembering the Europass.”

Bernard tries to shrug while lying pinned down, but he’s too busy blushing anyway. “I’m sure you would have thought of it if I hadn’t.”

Sir Humphrey chuckles. “There’s no need to flatter, Bernard; you’ve already gotten me into bed with you.”

Bernard laughs as Sir Humphrey gives a genuine and unshielded grin, propped up slightly above him on one elbow. In the autumn light again, even nearly a decade and a half later, Bernard still can’t stop himself reaching up to cup that pale skin glowing golden with one hand. It surprises Sir Humphrey slightly, enough for him to reach his hand to Bernard’s, “You’re still so beautiful,” until those words make him falter for a moment.

Sir Humphrey’s hand does continue, coming to rest lightly on Bernard’s and encourage it to let go of him with a warm but guarded smile.

“I love you.” Bernard’s said it before, and knows he will continue to say it again and again despite everything.

Will Sir Humphrey’s smile always become so bittersweet? Will he always kiss Bernard as if to stop him saying any more? Will he never say anything back?

When he makes love with Sir Humphrey nothing has changed because of Jim.

Maybe that’s why this whole thing with Jim is happening.

An affair, isn’t it? He’s having an affair with Jim.

Or is he? You have affairs on relationships, not arrangements. And this has always remained only an arrangement between Sir Humphrey and him.

Perhaps he simply has two arrangements then. He already has two loyalties as part of his job, and why should his private life be any more simple?

No, it’s not an affair; Bernard can tell himself that as he lies there in Sir Humphrey’s arms that night. First he had one arrangement, now he just has two. That’s all.

~#~

This isn’t part of his duties as Jim’s PPS. Bernard makes that clear, and Jim makes that clear.

Perhaps not daring to try it at Jim’s London flat, they end up waiting until some insufferably tedious conference all the way out in the wettest, most sheep-ridden depths of Wales.

It isn’t like his first time with Sir Humphrey.

He is no longer hopeful enough to believe that this is the beginning of the rest of his life, that love and happiness will follow. This is simply what his life is now, and he just has to take what he can get from it.

Maybe it goes better because of that, because this time Bernard goes into it with his eyes open about what this is going to mean. Or more importantly what it is not.

He comes to Jim’s room at a reasonable time of the evening under the acceptable pretext of helping him with the briefs for tomorrow’s discussion about the intersection of administration and devolved government. The minister is in the bathroom when he arrives and lets himself in (While civil servants can be trusted solely with their room keys, it always leads to better results to make sure at least one civil servant has a copy of any politician’s room key) to stand very awkwardly and look down at the double bed. It’s rather a shame they aren’t actually going to prepare for tomorrow’s discussion, he finds himself thinking; the minister really doesn’t understand the subject, and he’s bound to say something insulting to their Welsh hosts if he’s given nothing better.

The bathroom door opens and he tries not to turn too quickly; it helps being so anxious, for once.

“Oh, Bernard!” Jim is surprised, and standing there in just the robe provided complimentary by the hotel. The short, barely thigh-length robe hanging quite open at his chest. “I wasn’t expecting you here already.” He’s incredibly at ease in his body, and unusual to Bernard because of it. And he’s grinning a grin that says a joke about how eager Bernard is will come any moment.

“Ah. Minister.” He nods a small greeting, nervous hands having clasped in front of him. His feet scrunch inside his shoes; why didn’t he take them off while he was waiting? It’s now going to lead to a really awkward fumbling pause when he has to undress.

“You look like you’re actually here to make me go through those briefs,” Jim jokes, laughing comfortably even, as he settles with a small bounce on the edge of the bed. “Don’t tell me you actually are!”

Bernard looks at him, really trying not to look particularly at where Jim has folded his legs over causing his robe to hitch up nearly all the way to- He takes a deep breath. The minister is giving him an out, deliberately or not, and something in him wants to take it. But ultimately, loyally, he replies, “No, Minister.”

“Good. Because there’s only one kind of briefs of yours I’m interested in tonight.” And Jim has the damn gall to look proud of that awful joke, grinning as he leans forward on one of his knees. Bernard both blushes and rolls his eyes up, biting back pedantry he doesn’t even wear briefs. “...Well,” Jim eventually urges.

“Well?”

“Come on then!” Jim huffs in a slightly flustered way. “You’re making _me _nervous, standing there all awkward like that.”

“Oh. What would you like me to do?”

Now Jim boggles slightly, cheeks flushing. “Y-You’re not going to- I thought you weren’t doing this as part of your job, Bernard.”

“I’m not,” he assures him.

“Then why are you calling me ‘Minister’ and,” He flaps his hand in Bernard’s general direction, “letting me order you about?”

Ah. Bernard lets himself smile warmly, a little self-satisfiedly. In his softer, more private voice, “Because I think you like it, Minister,” he says.

And Jim can’t help quite the little inhale. Bernard raises one eyebrow, continuing to smile at him. Jim’s eyes are staring only at him, the lights of the hotel room giving them a glint. And in his low, serious, equally private voice, “Are you just joking with me, Bernard?” he says.

“Not this time, Minister,” Bernard smoothly replies.

Jim’s eyes narrow for a moment to show that, yes, he did register that little joke in there at his expense. But then they take on a different quality, his breathing becoming measured and expression steady. In a firm and slow voice, he commands, “Take your clothes off, Bernard.”

A jolt travels up Bernard’s spine, right from his coccyx to the now-raised hairs on the back of his neck. He reaches for the lapels of his jacket slowly, wanting to savour this as well.

Jim moves to lay back against the pillows of the bed, legs still folded with casual grace and his hands resting on top of his barely covered lap. His attention is patient, focused only on Bernard’s body for as long as this is going to take. He doesn’t follow the suit jacket that is shrugged off and folded on the end of the bed; instead he is already looking to the neatly knotted tie to come off next.

Bernard fumbles at it, consciously forgetting how to undo the knot. He can’t look at Jim’s face, not when Jim is watching him like that, nor can he look at any other part of Jim’s body in his flustered state. So he looks away, still knowing he is being watched and indulging in the voyeuristic thrill of it.

His tie is folded and lain on top of his jacket. He hems, wondering what he should remove next- Oh, his damn shoes! He really should have removed them before-

Jim chuckles. “Take your time,” he commands as Bernard hurries to pull off his shoes and socks. “Don’t rush.”

The way he says it, or maybe the pleasure his minister says it with, Bernard flushes with heat. He’s still a little hasty with his remaining foot, too embarrassed, but then sets them aside on the carpet he can feel beneath his bare feet.

Jim is still watching him, breathing steady but now a little raised in the otherwise quiet hotel room.

Acutely aware of himself, of what he is doing, Bernard reaches for the buttons of his shirt.

His shirt, his trousers and then his boxers are folded and lain on the bed. And then Bernard stands back, letting Jim look as he looks away.

He hears the exhaling now, words on the verge of being said, as the cool air of the room touches every part of his bare skin. “...Put your clothes on the chair,” Jim’s voice commands, soft but authorative.

Bernard picks up the pile, moving it across to the armchair in the corner in the room across from the bed to lay down. He feels the prickle of being watched in every movement from behind, his spine subconsciously straightening as he awkwardly rubs his hands together, awaiting his next order.

“Come here, Bernard.”

He swallows, but his legs comply by themselves until he is stood near the bedside, hands clasped modestly in front of him and body turned in front-on display. He finally dares look up at Jim, eyes first catching on the very obvious erection lifting the robe and barely concealed in shadow, then continuing up to where Jim is still patiently, fixedly watching only him with such desire. His hands fidget in front of his lower stomach, watching as Jim’s gaze travels slowly all over his body.

Leaning slightly to one side, little finger slipping into his mouth to chew on while he is so fixated, “Turn around,” Jim says, motioning with one hand which way to go. Bernard complies until he is told to, “Stop,” and he does.

The minister is playing with him like a doll. He is something pretty, to be admired and desired.

Bernard’s cheeks flush and he has to take a steadying breath as he waits under the warm and shaded light of the hotel room.

Jim keeps him there for a ridiculously long while, or so it feels, turning him as he pleases and building the dratted anticipation so high that Bernard nearly has a heart attack when he’s finally suddenly grabbed and pulled down onto the bed. Then Jim’s hands and lips are all over him, a leg prying Bernard’s own legs apart and keeping them that way as all Bernard can do is squirm beneath him. It makes Jim chuckle, pulling back briefly to flash a grin that Bernard can clearly see his canines in. “You little tease.” He nips at Bernard’s jaw. “Minx. Teasing me night and day at the department...” Another nip.

Bernard tries not to flinch or squirm; it only seems to encourage. “I’m quite sure I haven’t been doing it intentionally, Minister. And I can’t have been teasing you at night as you always go home by fi-” Jim’s hand over his mouth shuts him up, that leg between his hitching one of his knees up and back.

Where Sir Humphrey is urbane and controlled, Jim is earnest and dynamic. He barely seems to know where to start, refusing to settle into anything.

His fingers push at Bernard’s lips and Bernard allows them in, sucking and licking them as they feel their way around in his mouth. His own hands go to Jim’s robe, undoing and pushing it back finally. Jim leans back to help him shed it before his long body settles back over Bernard’s, the wet fingers pulling themselves from Bernard’s mouth to move straight down and press into Bernard, scissoring him open.

Jim leads the whole thing, taking what he wants. He fingers Bernard for as long as he wants, then makes Bernard suck his dick – Bernard knows it’s because Jim can’t allow himself to admit he forgot the lube – before they do it the way he wants, dirty and rough.

Where Sir Humphrey was so concerned with not harming Bernard and looking after him, the minister is only using him, and that feeling is one Bernard likes too much. (The voice in the back of his head, the one he is still ignoring, suggests it’s one Bernard has emotionally gotten very used to.)

Jim makes him feel desired, very, very desired. But not loved.

Lying there afterwards Jim seems to appreciate Bernard snuggling up to him, seemingly taking it as some sort of approval of his performance. One of Jim’s long arms is wrapped around him, hand smoothing soothingly over Bernard’s back as Jim sighs in contentment to the room. “Good?” he asks.

Bernard tries not to grin hard enough for it to be noticed against Jim’s chest; he really is looking for an approval rating. “Very good, Minister.”

“I thought so,” Jim nods proudly, and Bernard isn’t even going to start that apparently politicians are the same in bed as they are everywhere else. “So... the next time we’re at a conference, or if I’m alone at the flat and you’ve got the evening free...?”

“Yes, Minister.” Bernard trails his hand across Jim’s chest, wrapping his arm around Jim too.

Jim turns down towards him, pressing his cheek fondly against the top of Bernard’s head to kiss his crown. And Bernard lets out such a happy, little breath.

But then the phone rings and Jim has pulled away in an instant, letting go and shrugging off Bernard’s arm around him to bounce straight over to where the room’s phone is on the bedside table.

Bernard pushes himself up slightly to half-sitting, watching as Jim eagerly answers to see whom it is. And then even more eagerly, “Oh! Annie, darling!” He makes himself comfortable against the pillows on that side of the bed. “Yes, no problems. Of course it started raining as soon as we were across the border; hasn’t stopped since we got here. Bloody Wales.”

Bernard sits up, looking over at Jim’s back mostly turned to him as he instead leans on the bedside table to concentrate on the phone. He tuts at the latest news about his daughter, laughs at one of his wife’s jokes, and commiserates about being away from home and her.

Bernard looks over at his pile of clothes on the room’s chair, and after one more glance at Jim gets up to go fetch them and redress.

He leaves the room without Jim even noticing, happily chatting as he is.

In the corridor Bernard leans back against the shut door for a moment, before taking in a small breath and returning to his own room alone.

~#~

The next morning Jim does ask where he disappeared to, but a simple excuse about not wanting anyone to see him staying too long is enough for Jim to be happy with the matter.

Bernard has learnt by now it’s his fault, that he can’t magically expect them to see inside his quiet little head so he needs to say something. But he still doesn’t, to either of them. He doesn’t want to appear... weak? Needy? In love?

He’s not even in love with Jim.

He brings up that he’s willing to do anything, meaning more unusual sexual preferences, as long as it’s not dangerous or unhygienic. And it’s an offer Jim eagerly accepts, mentioning he loves Annie too much for it and that he therefore feels bad about be willing to do it to Bernard. It’s easy to help Jim see it’s a matter of consent, that he wants to and she doesn’t. When Jim says he doesn’t even want to imagine Annie feeling different, Bernard is able to tell him that means he loves the reality of her too much, that’s all.

It’s all far too functional, too transactional and friendly to be love. This is just the mutual satisfaction of desires that his arrangement with Sir Humphrey was meant to be. And it’s quite a relief because of that.

Jim doesn’t love him either.

Oh, Jim certainly cares about him. In work and out he’s often genuinely eager to spend time with Bernard, having a cup of tea to talk about his worries or chatting about the driver-safe aspects of their personal lives in the back of his chauffeured car. And at other times Bernard could almost swear Jim cares about not making himself look bad in front of him. (Though there’s also times the minister seems to take a cruel glee in watching Bernard wriggle when put under pressure by him; he’ll chalk that up to some of the dominant tendencies he’s witnessed in bed.)

Jim cares but doesn’t love him, not any more than Sir Humphrey does.

Jo loves him as a best friend, better than can be expected from most wives really.

His family, distant but still keeping up with his life, love him as family.

No one quite loves him as he wants to be loved. But he is loved, and cared about, and what more can he really ask for?

It’s enough; he repeats that to himself regularly, still waiting for it to sink in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content Notes:  
Jim's parliamentary questions part is from the book, the assistant and lunches. The civil servant light bulb joke from tumblr, which probably meant it was from somewhere else before that.  
The 80s was when the NHS started being sold out in privatised pieces. It hasn't gone well.  
The best guess is that Pythia worked by inhaling some kind of hallucigenic vapours. I doubt it led to such badly butchered Beatles lyrics as I did here though, lol.  
Jim's laments about his job also come from the book.  
In the book it mentions Annie saying the bed not even moving when they’re in bed together. So maybe she’d be glad to pass the job off if she thinks he’s not very good.
> 
> And I leave you with a final question inspired by this chapter: What do you think Sir Humphrey would be like high on LSD?


	3. Masochist

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a series of viginettes taking place over the first three TV seasons. The plot starts next chapter - Yes, this story's actually going to have a proper plot!

The job of principal private secretary is given to high-flyers as a test. To walk the tightrope of betraying confidences without ever being suspected, saying one thing to the permanent secretary and another to the minister, all that.

Personally Bernard always finds it most amusing that both of them seem to be aware this is what he does and still accept it. As long as he maintains the necessary front when with them, what he gets up to behind their backs doesn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. Perhaps he does a good enough job that neither minds the backroom shenanigans that get the results. Or perhaps they simply don’t think about him when he’s not around.

It’s what makes him look, the curiosity of what they think about him, one time when Jim accidentally leaves his memoirs diary in his hotel room and asks Bernard to go up and fetch it for him. He finds on one page he’s referred to as ‘Good, old Bernard’, and by the very next Jim has gone to calling him ‘wet-hen-in-chief’.

He chuckles that it makes him think exactly of the way Sir Humphrey’s attitude can change so quickly as well, ticking him off for impertinence one moment and then commending Bernard for displaying more promise than he thought the next.

Both of them can’t seem to make up their mind about him.

In some ways it matches his feelings towards the two of them, how he can be so desperately in love with two people so inconsistent in what they give back.

Jim can be so wonderfully warm, loving Bernard’s clever jokes and happily laughing when they’re about someone else. “Although your little jokes at my own expense aren’t quite as funny as you seem to think,” he says one day.

“Jokes?”

“Well, they had better be jokes.”

“Oh, in that case I’m sure they are, Minister,” Bernard answers with a cheerful, if perhaps slightly bold, grin. And he gets away with it, the same way that Jim grows to find his pedanticness endearing and develops a protectiveness towards Bernard over time.

Sir Humphrey meanwhile truly knows how to appreciate him. Bernard can ask something like what the other thinks of him and the question will make Sir Humphrey chuckle – He’s always in a much more relaxed mood once they’ve been in bed together a while, to put it tactfully – and fuss through Bernard’s hair while he hums. “Irritatingly tempting. A distraction of the highest order. I’m sure I must have better things to do with my evenings than spend them having intercourse with you, though I can’t think what they are.” And as long as Bernard leaves it there they can both be very happy.

He is demanding but only because Bernard can do better, needs to in order to survive. Relatively, Sir Humphrey spoils him as these relationships, work and personal, go.

It’s complicated for all of them, Bernard understands that. That’s why he holds onto these good things during the hard times that complicated nature comes out.

Still, he can identify moments when things could be better even allowing for that. What he has is satisfactory, but it could be better. Just those little things.

~#~

The first time he is invited to Jim’s flat, Jim insists before anything else they attend to _matters _in the bedroom. Once that is done, “Want to watch some telly?” Jim asks, climbing out of bed and into his home clothes for relaxing in.

Bernard has no such luxury, retrieving his work clothes from the floor and frowning at the wrinkles in them. “Um, if you want to, Minister.”

“Good. Should be just about time for the news...”

Bernard can’t help a little amusement at how obviously desperate Jim’s hope of seeing himself on it is, especially when it’s particularly unlikely tonight. And indeed, it only takes five minutes of it running a main story about the voters’ dissatisfaction with how little the new government has achieved for the news to be turned off, remote thrown across the room into the seat of the armchair. “Shall we eat?” Bernard suggests from compassion, for both Jim and the TV remote.

“Hm? Oh. Yes, go on then. Bloody, fickle-minded...” Jim leads him to the fridge, complaining most of the way before assessing his wife has left him no leftovers. There are plenty of ingredients in there, and Mrs. Hacker seems the type to keep a kitchen well-stocked, but still Jim turns to him and asks, “Do you know how to cook?”

So this is what straight men are like- Or, well, bisexual men in this case, he supposes. “Quite well. If you’ll let me, Minister.” He gestures Jim aside, scouting out something simple he can make for the two of them.

Jim watches over his shoulder like an eager child, although not one learning anything from the experience, commenting on how he likes his food flavoured and asking why he’s doing things certain ways. Bernard is happy to answer, until Jim gets to, “So why do you know how to cook so well?”

“Oh. Well...” Bernard stirs the sauce awkwardly, pretending it needs far more concentration than it actually takes. “I just... learnt,” he shrugs, tone wilting a little.

“Learnt?” Jim presses, before seeming to note how things have shifted slightly. “Ah. Sorry. You don’t need me pestering you with all these questions, especially when you’re the one cooking for both of us.”

“It’s all right. I’m just... tired,” he settles on the most basic excuse, the one it’s too easy to fall back on.

After all, it would be too awkward to bring up his other... arrangement partner? What an awful term.

It would simply be too awkward to bring up that Sir Humphrey had been the one that taught him how to cook like this.

It had surprised Bernard himself that Sir Humphrey was quite the fan of cooking given his rather... traditional views when it came to gender roles, to charitably put it. He had supposed it could fall under the hedonism and taste for physical luxuries Sir Humphrey seemed given to.

The explanation he had been given though, was that, “It’s not all that dissimilar to our work: Selecting from the best ingredients for the job, properly preparing them-”

“Like a submission proposal?”

“Yes, if you must be so trite and obvious,” he had dryly responded to the interruption. “And ultimately bringing everything together at the correct time, well-presented and irresistibly tempting to those of a weaker mind.”

“I’ve never heard cookery described as an act of cunning before,” Bernard had responded at the time.

“Cunning?”

“Ah. That is, calculated and strategic organisation of all the involved components and factors,” he had narrowly saved himself with.

After all, a conversation about what Bernard liked to eat had led to the fabulously bizarre situation of having to explain to Sir Humphrey what a fish finger was.

“You’ve not even seen them advertised on TV?”

“Please, Bernard. As if I watch any of those _commercial_ channels that rely on the equivalent of roadside billboards to keep themselves afloat.”

“Fish fingers are fish goujons, I think you’d call them; at least that’s what Mum said they disguised them on the menu when we went to fancy restaurants when I was a kid.” That had earned him quite the bewildered stare. “We didn’t eat out often; we couldn’t afford it.”

“‘Couldn’t afford it’?” Sir Humphrey’s expression for things he found appalling had crossed his face. “Did you... not attend a public school?”

“I didn’t even attend a private school; I’m a grammar school boy,” Bernard had answered with a slight chuckle, deepening it as he saw the shock on Sir Humphrey’s face. “You don’t mind, do you?”

“Um, no.”

“Oh good. You know, I’ve heard some upper class people find it quite a turn on, ‘slumming it’.” He couldn’t help having a little fun at Sir Humphrey’s expense, especially as it had seemed to strike home given the blush it had conjured. But he had known that had it been any lower on the schooling strata the conversation, the whole arrangement would have been over there and then.

Sir Humphrey had cleared his throat, retreating to the safety of, “Well? Are you going to make some fish fingers for me sometime?”

“You don’t make them; they come pre-made and frozen.” It really had been too cute, the ignorance about such a silly thing. “Next time we’re at mine I’ll treat you to fish fingers, beans and chips.”

“...I’ll charitably allow you to call that a meal,” Sir Humphrey had responded in play.

It had been just as amusing when Bernard finally carried through, watching Sir Humphrey confronted by a fish finger on the end of his fork for the first time. And the amusement had been a shared one, all part of that game they always play.

With Jim now things are different though: Despite being a private school boy Jim is just as down-to-earth about the little everyday things as Bernard, and if anything an LSE education has made him far more base. Things are easier with Jim, that’s definitely the word.

But yet there’s not that same amusement there as with Sir Humphrey, that joy of cracking through the shell, Bernard reflects as they settle to watch some evening chat show together that Jim likes. Is it just the challenge that he likes with Sir Humphrey then? He’s certainly never as relaxed as he is right now, but there’s something almost a little... bland about how relaxed he is. It’s not stimulating enough. Although really, with his day job why on Earth should he be craving yet more difficulty in his private life? Always trying to impress Sir Humphrey is exhausting, now he reflects on it.

He and Sir Humphrey joke back and forward when alone, playing off each other and enjoying the rapport, the game they play. But it is like playing a game, which means it’s not genuine, which is why there’s a degree of distance between them.

He and Jim tease each other or trade little jokes they know the other will like, even if somehow it’s separate, only ever one of them doing it at a time. But it is genuine which means there’s no distance to it.

Washing up side-by-side with Jim after the meal, as Jim dabs suds on Bernard’s nose in return for one of his little jokes Bernard tries to imagine Sir Humphrey ever doing something so free and easy. He’d like to imagine it, but it just doesn’t seem possible.

He settles for getting Jim back later instead, delivering another little joke as he’s preparing to shave and making him snort shaving foam up his nose.

As they fall into bed that night they’re laughing together. Not just dry chuckles.

That’s why he tries not to mind when Jim makes a comment about what a good substitute for Annie he is.

~#~

It gives him a confidence, the second arrangement with Jim, whether that’s from the self-esteem boost of having a second man so interested in bedding him or knowing he won’t be alone should he fall from Sir Humphrey’s graces.

Either way, one evening at Sir Humphrey’s home Bernard finds himself asking, “Sir Humphrey, the physical arrangement within our wider arrangement has so far always been one directional, if you catch my drift. I was hoping that perhaps we could arrange it to re-arrange, physically that is, the nature of our arrangement so that the particular element generally considered reversible that has not yet been reversed could, well, be reversed,” before curling up his hands in apprehension.

Sir Humphrey simply looks up at him from the bed where he is reading with one of those patient, slightly patronising looks. “You mean you want to top in bed,” he summarises, “as I believe the colloquial vernacular goes?”

Bernard is unable to do more than blush so heavily he drops his head into a very uneasy nod.

Surprisingly Sir Humphrey continues, “I have no objection, I suppose.” He considers for a moment, book settling closed in his lap. “...Yes, this may be a good opportunity for you actually.”

Unsure what that means, Bernard merely watches as Sir Humphrey now sets his book aside and beckons him over for the night.

It all seems to be going so well, enough like normal at the start. But then it doesn’t seem to be moving past that; it’s then that Bernard understands he is meant to be taking the lead, Sir Humphrey’s unhelpfulness tonight deliberate and only growing as Bernard’s hesitance does in such unfamiliar territory. “You need to get better at taking the lead,” is murmured into his ear, along with an unspoken offer they can go back to Sir Humphrey being in charge if he wants.

It’s just like everything else. Where he wants Sir Humphrey to give to him, instead it’s all up to Bernard to try and take. But he doesn’t want to take, what that means; he wants to be willingly given and what that would mean.

That’s why he can’t bring himself to, in the end, ashamed at how he grows sullen and near tears like some child about it.

He just ends up hugging himself to Sir Humphrey for comfort that night.

He doesn’t hate Sir Humphrey, never. But if this is all he’ll ever be given then he does begin to wonder what the point of loving him is.

~#~

Neither of them has children, he or Sir Humphrey, but they do have pets.

At Bernard’s house they have a solitary cat. A short-haired, grey-brown one with a white chest, muzzle and paws – Frankly it looks like the soul of a suit-wearing businessman trapped inside the body of a cat.

It is aloof, disdainful, fussy, demanding and insists on only the highest quality food and care. It is however also very fond of Bernard, concerned if he shows any sign of distress, possessive if he shows any interest in others and keeps bringing him dead mice as ‘presents’ in an attempt to teach him better hunting techniques. They named it Hawthorne after the bush in their garden it hid under, but Bernard often thinks they should have named it Humphrey instead. (He does sometimes call it ‘Humphrey’ to himself, an act he’s almost certain the real Sir Humphrey has caught him in a couple of times.)

Sir Humphrey meanwhile has dogs. He has the large, fenced front garden for them and all the countryside to ramble in they could want, plus all the money and attention to spoil them as much as he pleases when home.

The thing that surprises Bernard, the first time he is rushed down by three over-eager and very friendly good boys (or girls; he can never remember), is the provenance of the dogs: Contrary to what might be presumed, they are anything but the well-bred, pedigree examples expected of someone like Sir Humphrey. They are always rescue dogs, invariably mongrels. And he adopts them in the Spring rainy season: “Come April, little Timmy or Suzie has grown too bored of that puppy they got for Christmas to take it for walks in the rain, so the poor things always end up getting dumped then. I only wish I could help more of them.”

Though Bernard may not often agree with Sir Humphrey’s disdain for ‘common folk’, on an issue like this he can’t help feeling the sense in it.

Sometimes he wonders if that’s what he is to Sir Humphrey, an abandoned mongrel to be taken pity on. But Sir Humphrey loves his dogs; Bernard hears him say that to them, so it’s not as if Sir Humphrey can’t speak those words – He’s seen up to and including Sir Humphrey tussling on the floor with them being licked all over his face; Bernard has to kiss that face, as he reminded them to little avail.

The rainy season rolls round again this year, and Sir Humphrey only has two dogs currently. Bernard wonders about asking, wonders if he will be asked.

But one day he simply arrives at Sir Humphrey’s house with him to find a third floppy, mixed-coloured mongrel called Bumble has joined Oscar and Twitch. And why not? It’s not as if they’re a couple or anything. It would have meant too much to be invited, to be asked for his opinion.

Sir Humphrey has his pets, and Bernard has his. Nothing is theirs.

~#~

Bernard stands happily at his minister’s chair side, watching the ministerial pen at work scribbling barely legible replies in margins or ignoring other sheets all together before they all are moved gracefully across into the ‘Out’ box of the desk.

Jim glances up before reaching for the next set of files, looking over his reading glasses at Bernard standing so cheerfully beside him watching, head cocking slightly as he notices he is being observed. “Yes, Minister?”

Jim pauses in the work, taking a moment to simply look at Bernard in such a happy mood. After a moment he reaches out, confounding Bernard greatly as he lifts up the bottom hem of the back of Bernard’s suit jacket. “When you look so happy like that I always expect to see a little puppy tail wagging away under here.”

Bernard’s surprise settles into a bemusement, particularly as Jim continues to hold his jacket up.

Their gazes meet for a moment, before Jim’s drops his to where his hand now starts to travel.

Bernard lets him, not objecting even as Jim moves to blatantly fondling his arse and genitals. Bernard’s attention does flick to the room’s windows and doors, but they are as quiet as he dutifully remains with little more than small gasps as Jim traces the length of his erection through his trousers.

Jim is his master after all, and God does Bernard like being his servant.

“You are an utter distraction, you know?” Jim says playfully, cupping and pulling at Bernard’s balls gently through the fabric.

“No one else has ever remarked on it, Minister.”

“But I’m the minister.” Now Jim moves to just one finger rubbing circles at the head of his cock; Bernard is certain the precum must have stained all the way through, that Jim can feel how wet he is right now. “What I say is the ultimate word around here.”

“Y-Yes, Minister.”

They stop there, Jim’s hand pausing and then retreating to return to the paperwork. Bernard merely shifts on his feet, trying to calm his breathing and picking up the diary from the corner of Jim’s desk to hold discreetly in front of him; should anyone come in either door they will not be able to see anything.

Jim, however, is still able to. And Bernard catches him now and then in his ministerial ‘thinking pauses’ treating himself to a look. He seems to serve as a good motivational aid, as he should do, and perhaps the minister will play with him properly once the work is done. Or perhaps he won’t; it’s all up to the minister after all.

Bernard simply stands by and waits, trying to ignore that little voice in the back of his head warning about the sheerness of the power imbalance he derives such pleasure from. With anyone else he accepts he would have to worry, but not with Jim he decides.

~#~

He can’t really help that loving both of them means he wants to help both of them – Or Jim at least. Sir Humphrey obviously doesn’t need his help, only obedience perhaps.

As principal private secretary his actions are very obvious to both of his masters, enough that he finds himself called into Sir Humphrey’s office one day and prefixed with, “I only promoted you because I thought I could trust you, Bernard,” before being faced with the question, “I can trust you, can't I, Bernard?"

“Oh yes. Of course, Sir Humphrey.” He watches as he is stalked around, tense and waiting for the pounce to come. “I only mean to keep the minister happy, when I go along with him. It’s good to keep him happy, surely?”

The tut from Sir Humphrey makes him flinch, but he is not set upon yet. “I suppose I should have known you would grow too emotionally attached, like a child with a lost puppy.” Out of the corner of his eye he catches Sir Humphrey cast a glance at him, and out of the corner of his ear he thinks he hears, “Although which is the child and which the puppy is debatable,” before it continues, “Of course it is good to please the minister, Bernard; it is our job to serve him, is it not?”

Is that the bait of the trap? “Um, yes.”

“And a happy minister is indeed more pliable, which I believe is what you were implying.” Bernard nods eagerly, seizing on that. “But do you understand, Bernard, that it is equally good that the minister not be too happy?”

“Uhh...” A little gormless, Bernard turns now only to find Sir Humphrey has ended up completely circling him round to his other side. “I... I’m afraid not.”

Sir Humphrey looks down at him with a pitying, but at least fond, smile. “As long as a man is not completely happy he still wants something. And if he wants something, that can be used as power to hold over him.”

“Oh. I’d never thought about like that before,” Bernard confesses.

“Would you like a demonstration, Bernard?” Sir Humphrey asks, somehow a couple of inches closer than Bernard remembers.

He can only make a wordless noise in response, allowing but startling as a warm, slender hand comes to rest on the front of his trousers. It merely traces an outline, shifting effortlessly as Bernard soon becomes hard, with nothing more than fingertips and Sir Humphrey’s eyes burning into the side of his face as Bernard has to look away.

“Wanting can be quite nice, can’t it, Bernard?” Sir Humphrey’s voice murmurs softly, face moving in close to Bernard’s ear. “Nicer than actually getting what you wish for and having nothing to look forward to anymore.”

After another unintelligible stammer, and he can feel the heat of his face flushing as it reflects off Sir Humphrey’s skin so close to his, “I-I suppose it’s good to, yes, keep the minister wanting sometimes...” he manages breathlessly, whimpering out a little moan as a thumb finds the sensitive head of his cock in reward.

“Exactly. Keeps them motivated.” And with that, Sir Humphrey has the cruelty to withdraw his hand and simply walk away, leaving Bernard feeling ready to collapse to the floor where he stands. “So I think it’s time you got back to work, Bernard,” he says oh-so-pleasantly, taking an utterly feline glee in it as he sits back down at his desk to study the state of the man he’s left in front of him.

“B-But I-” Bernard tries to gesture at his lower regions whilst almost simultaneously grabbing for something to keep him standing up. He’s not even sure if he means to point out how close he is to orgasm or simply that he can hardly go walk out into the corridors of the DAA with a large and very clear erection straining at the front of his trousers.

Sir Humphrey tilts his head, feigning utter obliviousness to the problem, before returning to penning edits in the margin of the paper in front of him.

Whining out a little huff, Bernard turns away to the closest wall to breathe deeply and control his mind for a few minutes, eventually calming himself enough to walk to the door of Sir Humphrey’s office in a state he can conceivably leave in. “I’ll be returning to the private office then,” he says, and there’s almost the tiniest amount of rare bite in his tone.

Sir Humphrey glances up, a hint of entertained smirk sliding through his features as he nods his unneeded permission.

Bernard huffs lightly once outside the office, readjusting his suit jacket just in case before setting off down the corridors.

The lines have become blurred over the years, he reflects, between the private and public Sir Humphrey. But they’re still there even if blurry, sadly. Tangled is perhaps an even more apt word, the power dynamics Bernard was promised would not feature having crept in because of these sorts of moments, the ones they both like too much.

He finds it hard not to want to obey when, for example, Sir Humphrey wants him to intervene to stop the minister seeing the Prime Minister about these terrorists buying British weapons. That approval he gets, not just formally for the sake of his career but also the pleasure in Sir Humphrey’s smile as he presses Bernard down into bed, that of an owner’s pride over a perfectly-trained pet, which like an addiction he can no longer resist...

Bernard lies awake with guilt about it. How wrong, to then be in Jim’s bed acting as faux-loyal as always. He doesn’t even mind it, the times Jim suspects him of betrayal he has committed, prefers it even.

Looking down at Jim’s sleeping face, pulled into a smile for some reason, “I’m sorry, Jim,” Bernard lets a gentle hand hover near the edge of that smile, but retracts it before he does any more damage.

Guilt, therefore, is what causes him to ultimately help Jim when the next big issue comes up concerning his constituency football club. He pulls that one off in such a way that even Sir Humphrey is kept pleased by getting what he wants. Everyone is, in that case, he supposes.

But it begins the worries about everything they might find out, about what they would think of their supposedly loyal Bernard then. Would they simply accept it, like the small betrayals they turn a blind eye to for the sake of looking at the bigger picture instead? Where will that line of too far to forgive be? He truly hopes he doesn’t find out.

~#~

“Nothing wrong with subsidising sport. Sport is educational.”

“We have sex education too. Should we subsidise sex, perhaps?”

“Oh, could we?”

The other two snap round to look at him, particularly the fact he has only perked up in the conversation to add that one thing of all things, and Bernard baulks politely in guilt. He checks if either has a secret smile they don’t want to admit, which neither does, before shrinking back into his seat for the rest of the conversation.

It’s only a minute later when the realisation of what he actually said, or how it will have sounded more importantly, hits him. If they were taking it seriously there are only really four conclusions someone could draw from what he said:

  1. He was having such a hard time getting laid that he needed to have it state-subsidised to help him get some.
  2. He used prostitutes and felt the government ought to do something about their prices being too high.
  3. He had such wild and expensive sexual proclivities he needed financial aid to help pay for them.
  4. He was a sex worker himself who felt he ought to be getting better reimbursed for the important service he was providing.

It had only been a joke, the opportunity having so perfectly presented itself. The other two knew the first wasn’t the case, and being as busy as they kept him the second certainly wasn’t true either. He wouldn’t mind the third being true, but it wasn’t.

That left the fourth, and the thought that these days maybe he _should _change his job description from ‘civil servant’ to ‘rent boy’. With just Sir Humphrey it had been all right. But now with Jim in the picture as well what is he but a toy keeping two of the most powerful men in Britain satisfied so the country can keep running as it does? He _ought_ to be subsidised for his services.

You know, now that he thinks about it he’s somewhat surprised neither of them _is_ paying him considering the ultimately pragmatic nature of their arrangements. Perhaps they think he gets enough from them without further compensation, the opportunity to sleep with a Member of Parliament in Jim’s case, and in Sir Humphrey’s... he’s always wondered if Sir Humphrey is aware of Bernard’s feelings for him and believes he’s doing a kindness letting Bernard indulge them.

He ought to feel bitter about it, dirty and used perhaps. So why does he only feel aroused about being little more than a glorified rent boy to them?

He should probably look into that, put it under active consideration even. But that would mean asking a question he doesn’t know the answer to, that he probably doesn’t want to know the answer to. It’s one that should definitely be asked, but Bernard just can’t bring himself to.

~#~

It went without even once saying that in order to keep their secret the attitude between Sir Humphrey and him must be very formal, almost deliberately cool at times, when at the DAA. It slips at times, times Bernard loves for what they mean, and is allowed to naturally soften over the years as would be standard between colleagues who have known each other that long. But it protects them, particularly after the rather big promotion to principal private secretary Sir Humphrey gave him that could have easily been argued wasn’t merited.

However Sir Humphrey may act at work Bernard knows how he really feels.

He knows, for example, how much Sir Humphrey has always dreamt of leaving the DAA for a higher position in the civil service. So when he is invited over one night with talk about the need for celebration it’s not with too much surprise that Bernard receives the news Sir Humphrey, barely able to stop smiling in that preening way of his, will be moving from Permanent DAA Secretary to Cabinet Secretary; perhaps in idolisation he always has thought Sir Humphrey deserves such a high office, a fact that seems to earn him a lot of good points when he happens to mention it offhand in reaction to the news.

But then everything else happens, Jim being touted for Prime Minister and then ascending to it of all people. And the offer for Bernard to continue as his principal private secretary, the Prime Minister’s principal private secretary.

The gap between how Jim treats him in private and at work is small so nothing about how Jim treats him ever really surprises him.

But as he accepts the offer, Bernard turns to watch how Sir Humphrey will react to the wonderful news.

“...The Prime Minister’s word is law.”

Cold, clipped, practically begrudging.

Bernard doesn’t actually dare ask about the reaction the next time they’re alone, too fearful this time he has gotten it all wrong. Sir Humphrey senses something is amiss though, and unsurprisingly manages to extract it from him.

“Oh Bernard,” he says in that rather patronising, drawn-out way. “I played it like that only so the minister wouldn’t suspect anything; had I given my endorsement he might have thought I had some vested interest in having you promoted, that’s all.”

“So you do think I can do the job?” Bernard says, warming.

“Well... I’m sure you’ll manage,” Sir Humphrey replies with a smile.

Bernard stops, brain clicking back over those words a few times like a record that’s gotten stuck. “Does that mean you think I don’t deserve this promotion?”

Sir Humphrey sighs, the sort of sigh he usually uses with politicians when he’s been caught and pressed on something he shouldn’t have spoken on. “I write your performance reviews, don’t I, Bernard? Surely if I had any concerns about your performance I would have mentioned them in there.”

“Do you think I deserve this promotion?” Bernard presses. He’s a damn fool, and he knows it.

And Sir Humphrey’s face confirms it. He sighs again, glancing aside for a moment before facing Bernard again. “The promotion has now been made. Are you sure you want an answer to that question, Bernard?”

Doesn’t such a non-answer say enough? He could infer that, press Sir Humphrey on it and be asked back to justify the assumption he’s made rather than be given the answer he wants. He should drop it. “Do you think the minister- that is, the Prime Minister has made a mistake?” But he doesn’t because once again he’s a damn fool and he knows it.

Sir Humphrey’s mouth at least pulls into a sort of smile this time. “Well, let us say I don’t believe he made the decision with your best career prospects in mind.”

“Career prospects?”

“You should really be looking to move to a deputy or under secretary role really, if you want to be a permanent secretary one day. And I think it would have done you some good to spread your wings out from under the egregious James Hacker,” Sir Humphrey says with a semi-shrug. “But things are what they are.”

Oh. Perhaps Sir Humphrey is just white-lying, or just plain-lying, but Bernard can’t help brightening a little anyway. “I don’t think I want to spread my wings,” he mentions, considering this new idea.

And it makes Sir Humphrey lightly snort in amusement. “Those masochistic tendencies of yours again,” he notes with fond dryness.

Bernard is left utterly blushing, especially when he notices Sir Humphrey looking at him in that particular way, with only one thing in mind.

As ever Sir Humphrey is right: The promotion has now been made. What’s the point in asking these questions or stirring unnecessary things up between them?

He still has his arrangement with Sir Humphrey, and his with Jim. He still has his job, a better one even, and one just as close to both of them. Everything is a better version of the same.

A better version of enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many of the opinions Jim/Humphrey expresses concerning Bernard in the first part are taken from the novels.
> 
> In Britain the school system goes Public > Private > Grammar > Comprehensive in descending order of status. Grammar schools aren't really mentioned in the series like the others so I should note they're for children of particular academic merit (though they tend to still go to middle class instead of lower class kids due to reasons). It's a reasonable achievement to get into one, and particularly to go from one to Oxford university, but Bernard is nothing if not the sort of nerd who could.
> 
> Humphrey's dogs are named after some of Nigel's he mentions in his autobiography. Hawthorne is just named after Nigel himself, lol. I couldn't resist; even Thatcher saw how cat-like Humphrey is. In the novel it mentions Sir Humphrey prefers to buy free-range eggs because he dislikes the suffering of battery chickens, so there’s good evidence for him being an animal lover of a sort interestingly.
> 
> That "Oh, could we?" line of Bernard's is my favourite in the whole series. I never really gave much thought as to what it actually meant though until recently as it was such an obvious joke, but it's fascinating to wonder if you take it seriously.
> 
> I never understood Humphrey's coldness to Bernard's promotion in 'Party Games'. In the novel it's mean and says Jim could have done better than Bernard. Weird choices by the writers.
> 
> So as I said, more plot next time. I hope to upload that sooner now I've freed more time back up in my life, but I just got Pokémon Sword so that might delay things a little, haha (I caught a Wooloo and named it 'Bernard', so it's a Bernard Wooloo :D You're the only nerds I can share that little self-amusing joke of mine with)


	4. Martyr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A warning for some brief dub-con/non-con in this chapter, but it's not too bad and it does get addressed afterwards.

Sometimes he worries.

Sometimes he thinks one or the other must have caught on about the second arrangement he has, realised they didn’t leave that hickey on his neck or seen through his lies as to why he can’t stay in their room when away at a conference because he secretly has to go pull a second shift sleeping with the other.

But long ago Sir Humphrey told him about the difference between evidence and proof, and he’s awfully careful that neither of them ever gets proof. They may catch the occasional scrap of evidence but all it can do is make them start seeking more, not answer anything itself.

When Jim expresses the same worries, that the increased press scrutiny that comes with being Prime Minister might lead to their arrangement being discovered – Or maybe it’s already been discovered; neither of them knows what Jim’s MI5 file contains – Bernard reassures Jim with the same things he tells himself.

He sees that Jim may not wholly and always believe in it, any more than Bernard does himself at times, but their arrangement continues regardless. And his one with Sir Humphrey is as unchanging as ever. That’s all he really wants.

~#~

It’s probably a sensible paranoia given Jim has grown slowly bolder with him over time.

It started with small things, groping or fondling Bernard as he sees him off from the flat while Annie is in the next room, for example. One time she caught him and Bernard stood by awkwardly in their front hall to overhear Mrs. Hacker ticking off her husband that, “You treat him like a female secretary in the 1950s, playing with him like that. Next you’ll be saying he enjoys it like foxes enjoy being hunted,” which makes Jim fall into a sulking silence, unable to protest because she’d pre-empted the defence he was going to reach for.

Jim actually treated him with a little more respect after that, which was unexpectedly nice; he honestly didn’t expect Jim to care given their relationship was only meant to be about the pleasure. But indeed, over time they do truly come to respect one another personally as well as professionally.

But sadly all that goes out the window whenever Jim gets drunk.

No one is going to tell the Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland how much he should or shouldn’t drink, not if his wife isn’t there at least. And certainly not at an EEC summit conference where the various heads of government and state have gotten into a competition over whose country produces the finest alcohol, one that quickly devolves into a plain drinking contest once the Swiss President brings out some illegally obtained absinthe.

Bernard watches from afar with a consternated frown beside his French equivalent, who seems to take his own Premier’s inebriation wearily in-stride, until he really knows Jim has had enough and excuses himself to join the other assistants and civil servants beginning to intervene.

He gets the very friendly Jim to stagger away with him, trying to take him from the main room to find somewhere with a little more fresh air. Jim seems neither supportive nor adverse to the plan; in fact he seems too drunk to understand it, simply complaining to Bernard all the way about his fellow heads of government and their apparent belittling of him (the irony of him now belittling them lost on him).

Their physical position, with Jim leaning on him for support, that had seemed so practical suddenly becomes anything but when Jim lurches to press Bernard up against one of the corridor walls. “They have no idea what they’re talkin’ ‘bout, righ’?”

“Um, no, Prime Minister,” Bernard agrees on instinct, flustered and more concerned about getting Jim off him before anyone comes.

“‘xactly,” Jim now breathes by his ear, one hand pushing back a lapel of Bernard’s suit jacket to caress his chest through his shirt.

Bernard is quite certain he squeaks like some small prey animal, “P-Prime Minister!” and he starts struggling like one too. “Please!”

He gets a slurred chuckle, and the hand simply slides round to cup his waist, a sloppy mouth kissing at his neck.

Although the arousal of it can’t be denied, “Prime Mi-Minister, you’re drunk!” and he finds himself only frozen, unable to physically protest this, “Please, stop this!”

“Oh Bernie,” Jim tsks him, now aiming his inaccurate kisses for Bernard’s mouth.

He turns aside from one, ducking another as he finally pushes Jim back slightly to say, “We’ll be caught!”

Jim makes a long ‘pffffft’ sound. “Ev’ryone’s too drunk.” He finds it amusing, the irony once again lost.

“Please,” Jim’s other hand finds his semi-hard erection, “I don’t want to- Ah...!”

“You like it,” Jim murmurs against his cheek, “tha’ we might- that they migh’ catch us.”

“No, that’s precisely what I-!” He tries to push Jim a little too hard, leading to a stumble that sprawls Jim into a nearby row of seats. Despite his panic Bernard can see no real harm has been done, only further inebriated confusion at the sudden change in position, and he therefore lets himself escape away around the corner, seeking somewhere he can hide to at least let his body calm down if nothing else.

Bernard ends up in the gents, spending a long time before he even comes out of a stall to make sure he is no longer trembling or hard before he washes his hands to calm himself and takes a little longer to prepare before coming back out.

It’s not hard to find the congregation of worried or weary civil servants and wives that have occupied one of the larger corridors not far from the bathrooms, lamenting the state their heads of government are in.

Sir Humphrey is on the side of the group and detaches upon noticing Bernard to come over.

Bernard begins to stammer, “Wh-Where is-?”

“Our eminent Prime Minister? Escorted back to his room by the hotel staff,” Sir Humphrey informs him, seeming a little irritated as if he blames Bernard for all this. Bernard’s gaze drops miserably, at which point Sir Humphrey’s lifts up and looks in the direction of the bathrooms Bernard has come from. “Are you all right, Bernard?”

Surprised to be so quickly forgiven, “Oh. Well, um...” he tries to neither lie nor tell the truth, knowing neither would be liked.

And thankfully Sir Humphrey takes an understanding pity on him. “I was just about to retire; I’m feeling quite tired myself.” He glances back at the group. “And tonight’s entertainment seems to be at a thankful end.” He looks to Bernard again. “Perhaps you should join me?”

A subtle invitation. Bernard eagerly takes him up on it,

Up in their hotel room they take turns in the shower before climbing into bed. Bernard had been allowed to go first and is still sat up, hugging his knees and staring into space, when he is startled out of it by Sir Humphrey joining him. “Are you all right, Bernard? Did something happen?”

“...Um.” Is there even a good way to lie about it? He’s too obvious to pretend nothing happened.

“Did one of the drunks behave unpleasantly?” Sir Humphrey hazards. “Inappropriately?”

He has no idea how Sir Humphrey guesses these things, but is so glad he can simply nod.

“Oh, Bernard.” Sir Humphrey pulls him to simply snuggle up for a comforting, as one might do with a child.

That’s all that happens that night before he falls asleep. When it could have been so much worse, Bernard can’t help being very glad.

The next morning he approaches Jim’s door uneasily, summoning his courage before entering.

Jim is laid up in bed in his dishevelled clothes from last night, groaning and with his bottle of painkillers obvious on the bedside table. Bernard comes to sit beside the bed, unseen by Jim who has his hand over his face. After a groan, “Is that you, Bernard?”

“Um, yes, Prime Minister.” This is his normal Jim again at least, and so he reaches over, brushing back hair and laying a cooling hand on Jim’s forehead. “How are you feeling?”

“Awful. I wish I’d drunk more last night so I would have thrown it up and I’d be less blasted hungover right now.”

“I don’t think it works like that,” Bernard offers with an amused smile, getting up to quietly fetch a glass of cold water and a flannel.

They seem to do the trick of bringing Jim back to the world of the living at least, sat up with a hand hovering near his eyes to shade them from the morning sunlight piercing his flimsy hotel curtains. He looks wretchedly sick still but somewhat composed again as he turns to face Bernard’s direction, bent to lean on his knees as if he can’t quite support his own head yet. Wincing first, “What even happened last night?”

“Ah, well, um...”

“Oh yes,” Jim says, remembering now. “Bloody absinthe; you get drunk so fast it’s not even fun.” Looking up at Bernard finally, “Did you bring me back to my room?”

“Um, no, Prime Minister. The hotel staff did,” Bernard says awkwardly, wondering if he ought to change the subject away from this.

“They did? But I remember...” Jim trails off, picking through what memories he has behind a middle distance gaze. Eventually he comes across one that makes him look directly at Bernard, gaping a little wordlessly. “Oh Bernard! We didn’t get caught, did we?”

After a moment to feel disappointed that’s all Jim asks, “No, Prime Minister,” Bernard answers.

Jim breathes out in relief, rubbing his sore head.

Bernard sits quietly, hands clasped in his lap and gaze downturned.

Eventually Jim looks up, noting the moment that isn’t going anywhere. “You’re quiet even for you, Bernard. Everything okay?”

“Oh.” He wants to say ‘yes’, to act like everything’s fine for Jim’s sake.

“What’s wrong?” Jim is kind enough to ask though.

And because of that Bernard can’t stop himself saying, “Well, it’s only... Do you remember how I asked you to stop yesterday evening and you, well, didn’t?” He tries a smile that says he doesn’t blame Jim and hopes not to be too hated for this.

For a moment Jim evidently doesn’t remember. But then it comes back to him again, that same wordless gaping and slight flinching as he struggles for how to respond. “Ah. I’m so sorry. I didn’t do anything too... you know, did I?”

Bernard shakes his head. “You were simply overly affectionate, shall we say?”

“Oh Lord. I’m surprised we weren’t caught after all,” Jim mentions, and Bernard nods along. “Bloody absinthe,” he curses again.

“I-” Bernard starts, and stammers as he realises he’s trapped himself now into saying, “I... I really wish you wouldn’t drink so much, Prime Minister...”

Jim chuckles. “Good Lord, it really is like having a second wife with you, Bernard.”

Frowning slightly, “It can’t be good for your health,” he says frankly. Given Jim doesn’t respond in any way that would signal he cares about that, “This country needs you, Prime Minister; you need to look after yourself, for everyone’s sake.”

That gets through, even if it’s a bit of a ploy. Jim sits considering it for a moment, before admitting, “You’re right. They do need me, all those little people out there.” Bernard smiles in relief, and fond amusement at Jim’s predictable ways. Jim sighs. “I’m getting a bit old for this anyway. And I think I proved my point last night.”

“I’m sure you did,” Bernard agrees, simply as a means to an end. “Do you want me to fetch you some tea, Prime Minister?” he offers, standing.

“Oh, yes please, Bernard.” Watching him start to head towards the door, Jim starts to his feet after a moment. “Bernard,” calling after.

Bernard pauses, looking back at a rather contrite and sheepish-looking Jim.

“I’m sorry again about last night. It must be hard for you sometimes, since I’m your boss and all.”

Mildly shocked, Bernard then brightens into a proper smile. “Thank you, Prime Minister.”

“I hope you know I do respect you,” Jim continues. “That only happened because I was drunk.”

“I do know. I just... I just wish you respected me enough not to get drunk in the first place, if you know you might act like that,” Bernard finishes in a small voice, fiddling with his hands he doesn’t know whether to put in his pockets or fold in front of him.

He isn’t looking up but can feel Jim staring at him. He’s gone too far this time, hasn’t he? He turns to go leave, fetch the tea like he’s meant to- A hand lightly rests on his, stopping him. “Thank you for telling me. I won’t do it again, Bernard. I promise.”

Bernard looks up, daring to hope. Jim does look serious about it, and despite him being a politician Bernard wants to believe in his promise.

And this turns out to be one promise that Jim actually keeps, unlike all his political and manifesto ones. Okay, so perhaps he still drinks a little too much and ends up drunk sometimes. But never does he get so drunk as to act like that again.

~#~

One time Jim puts him in a very awkward position. No, not physically. Instead Jim asks him what he thinks of Sir Humphrey, personally.

Bernard hums and errs, hedging on an admiration for less contentious qualities like Sir Humphrey’s intelligence and dedication to his job.

It turns out that thankfully Jim only asked the question so he could give himself a reason to share his views, a rambling vacillation that eventually settles into, “His sometimes brilliant ideas make it worth nearly all the trouble he causes me.”

It’s an ambivalent sentiment Bernard can understand, how someone so wonderful can also require so much work to deal with. The work feels worth it though for the small victories he wins over the years, how by the time they have moved to Downing Street Sir Humphrey is now referring to him in letters by name instead of initials and even signing off ‘Yours ever’ for example.

But then comes the whole episode with Sir Humphrey’s key. Bernard is not sure if what happens then is the destruction of everything he’s worked so hard to build up or his biggest victory yet.

It’s not a situation Bernard is at all keen to be in when the Prime Minister’s political advisor starts it; with her involved as well he now has three people trying to sway his behaviour whom he hates to disappoint – Mrs. Wainwright is a very nice woman really, always addresses him by name and remembers he exists which is more than can be said for many people he deals with in the course of his work – and he is unfairly the one most put on the spot by the whole thing.

He does expect Sir Humphrey to be put out about it, to call him out on the ‘alien’ admitted to No. 10 to demonstrate his authority, to generally strop and pressure him like usual and expecting eventually to get his way as he usually does.

Jim’s threat to Humphrey’s position as Head of the Home Civil Service is the first sign things may not be like usual this time though.

Bernard dutifully informs Sir Humphrey when the Prime Minister’s meeting with Sir Frank is to be because it’s too habitual, something that slips out over breakfast without him even realising Sir Humphrey was fishing for information on their already arranged night together.

He realises though when Sir Humphrey arrives in the private office with every intention to interrupt said meeting. There he gets his first taste of standing up to Sir Humphrey trying to insist it’s inconvenient, and he hates how displeased Sir Humphrey looks with him.

It scares him, to have displeased Sir Humphrey, and it’s something Sir Humphrey takes advantage of pressing him for answers, intimidating him like that pressed with his back up against the cabinet room door.

Bernard really does do his best to stop Sir Humphrey as per his orders, but he can’t help his fear and the fact Sir Humphrey doesn’t respect his protests not to enter. Why does Jim have to shout at him for that? And of all things then go and make it worse by ordering him to take Sir Humphrey’s key away from him?

But Jim authorises him to do it. And behind that Bernard realises Jim really does respect him.

Does Sir Humphrey respect him?

It’s not a question he’s thought much about before, mainly because he’s not sure he deserves it. But Jim, the Prime Minister himself, respects Bernard as his boss and in private as well in regards to their arrangement. If Jim does, shouldn’t Sir Humphrey as well?

That’s why, for the first time ever in the nearly 20 years they’ve known each other, in that conversation on the phone he says, “No,” to Sir Humphrey. He’s said that he didn’t feel up to one or the other activity when he was under the weather, that he prefers different things to Sir Humphrey’s initial suggestions and implied his dislike or disapproval of certain things. But never has he said a simple and plain, “No,” before. That’s probably why Sir Humphrey doesn’t believe it. Bernard takes an extra joy in being able to repeat it.

Since Sir Humphrey won’t listen to the, “No,” however, that’s why he says he’s busy as well – That and he’s frightened by his own behaviour. Disagreements at work have spilled over into their private life before, not speaking or spending evenings together, but he fears this might be doing too much damage. Yet he knows he needs to say it – only for Sir Humphrey to also not listen to that and come anyway.

Bernard is glad Mrs. Wainwright is there for the ensuing conversation to prevent any bloodshed there might otherwise have been.

“My God!”

“No, Bernard, it’s just your boss.”

His boss, Sir Humphrey says. But Sir Humphrey isn’t his true boss now, not like at the DAA at least. And more importantly he’s been taking advantage of that blurred line between work and their personal life for too long, of how eager he knows Bernard is to please because of his feelings.

“I’m staggered.”

“I’m fairly surprised myself.”

Sir Humphrey really is displeased this time, past anything Bernard has brought upon himself in a long time.

They argue about where Sir Humphrey’s key has gone, which he knows Bernard has taken away therefore. He goes to leave, before thinking again.

Then comes the moment, when he watches Sir Humphrey walk back towards him with that softened attempt at forced reconciliation. “Bernard, I don’t want us to fall out over this.” He even touches Bernard’s arm fondly, blaming the whole thing on the Prime Minister’s pettiness to give Bernard a fair out. “You and I are going to have to work together for some years yet, but prime ministers come and go. Whereas your career prospects depends upon those who have the power over promotions and appointments on a long-term basis,” he says, ending with a knowing look.

There it is: Sir Humphrey’s offer for Bernard to admit his wrongdoings and be forgiven them, for things to return to the way they were before, a hint even that helping him on this whole issue over his Head of the Civil Service remit will further Bernard’s own career.

It’s always been like this.

But this time Bernard straightens up instead, and simply insists to know how Sir Humphrey came in.

Sir Humphrey ignores him, playing dumb, and goes to leave. Bernard has lost his chance for things to ever return to the way they were before.

He sees the look Sir Humphrey casts back at Mrs. Wainwright as she, a little patronisingly, commends Bernard, one of blame, but this has nothing to do with her. It’s not to impress her or even because of this whole matter of her office and the Prime Minister’s orders that Bernard snatches up the phone and orders the lock changed and all keys brought to him.

He has always been frightened of Sir Humphrey up until that moment, he realises that evening when the adrenaline wears off and leaves him shaking, unable to sleep with both the fear and thrill of what the morning might bring.

It brings the very amusing sight of a muddy and dishevelled Sir Humphrey begging for his key back in the end, and Bernard takes a guilty pleasure standing beside the Prime Minister and watching how Jim toys with the man’s already fragile nerves before handing the key finally back.

Bernard escorts Sir Humphrey out once the meeting is done, not because he has to but because he wants to. It’s awfully amusing how much pride and dignity Sir Humphrey still manages to walk with even in such an unkempt state, staring down the other junior secretary in the Private Office who dares to raise an eyebrow at his appearance.

They walk back to the Cabinet Office, Sir Humphrey taking a moment to check his new key does indeed work in the lock, and into Sir Humphrey’s office alone where he sets to cleaning up his appearance the best he can. Seating himself at his desk with tissues for the mud, he finally scowls at Bernard to acknowledge his existence in the room. “Was there something else? Does the Prime Minister want to give Poland back to the Germans while he’s at it?”

Bernard smirks slightly at the hyperbolic comparison of giving Mrs. Wainwright her office back; he thinks she’s an awfully nice woman really, although he understands Sir Humphrey’s frustration with her at the same time. “I only wanted to drop off the latest feasibility reports on the Prime Minister’s grand design plan,” Bernard places on the opposite side of the desk, “and to clarify that, despite you being given a new key, the procedure still stands that in future you should phone through before coming into Number 10, Sir Humphrey.”

Sir Humphrey drops his clenched hands to his desk quite fiercely, glaring now. “Fine! You can tell the Prime Minister I’ll follow his bloody procedure if he cares about it that much!”

He’s never seen Sir Humphrey this angry before. But nonetheless, “_I’m_ the one who wants you to follow the procedure, Sir Humphrey,” Bernard needs to say, keeping his tone calm and polite but forceful.

Sir Humphrey simply stares this time, pushed past his point of his expected limits of reality, before he stands to lean forward on his desk towards Bernard across from him, bringing them to the same height. “Bernard,” he begins in a measured tone, but then actually falls silent, unsure how to proceed. His deeply brown eyes search Bernard’s face for a while before flicking away in thought, tongue passing over his lips. He returns this time not with the fake, intimidating reconciliation of the private office the other day but instead, “What is this about? Really? You surely can’t support that impossible woman. Are you trying to score points with the Prime Minister for some reason? Or...” he searches, offering more quietly, “are you unsatisfied with some aspect of our arrangement?”

Drawing his strength up again, “You don’t respect me, Sir Humphrey,” Bernard answers him, if they’re going to be direct.

Sir Humphrey makes a scoffing laugh, sitting back in his seat comfortably. “Of course I respect you, Bernard.”

“No, you don’t!” Bernard has to insist. He gets a raised eyebrow from Sir Humphrey to proceed and explain himself, if he’s going to make such an outrageous claim. “You promised our arrangement wouldn’t affect our work lives but you regularly use it to extract extra information from me about the Prime Minister, and formerly minister’s, comings and goings-”

“I can hardly be expected never to discuss work when we’re alone,” Sir Humphrey interrupts, dismissively amused.

“You always pressure me to do what you want and see things from your point of view-”

“Only because I care about giving you the best career prospects possible, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey interrupts again. “You need to understand better how the world works-”

“You never listen to me!” Bernard interrupts back this time, voice jumping into a strangled squeak that always seems to come out when he tries to be strong and assertive. “Even the Prime Minister respects me more than you!”

He really didn’t intend to say that instead of something more relevant, but they seem to be the magic words that make Sir Humphrey sit up, turning to face Bernard properly. “You genuinely believe he has any respect for you, Bernard?” he asks, sounding actually willing to listen to Bernard’s answer.

“He listens when I say, “No,” to him.” Well, when sober at least. “He doesn’t...” No, that’s not really accurate either. “Um...” He gives up with a sigh; maybe all Jim does is do a better job acting like he respects Bernard. He can hardly bring up the drunk issue of the recent EEC conference, and given that’s his only real evidence, “I don’t feel like you respect me sometimes,” he shifts to, staring down at his shoes. “You treat me like a child, and you might think I deserve that but that’s part of the problem because, um...” He can’t find more. Is he really just making a fuss over nothing, making a fool of himself while Sir Humphrey is right like always? “I’m tired of you always being right...” he mutters, and can hear the petulance in it. He’s managed to make himself wish he’d never even started all this.

After receiving no immediate reply, Bernard finally looks up to Sir Humphrey now watching him with a fond smile indeed, leant on one arm resting on his desk. “That was masterful, Bernard; you managed to talk yourself in a full 180 degrees as quickly as a politician.” He ought to hate the teasing, but Bernard can’t deny that was quite funny actually. “Oh Bernard, I do respect you or else I wouldn’t spend my time attempting to advise you so often despite your indomitable self-destructive insistence on ruining your future career prospects. One has to play the game to succeed, in here and other areas of life; I do wish you were able to accept that,” now Sir Humphrey sighs as well, “but it’s also why I find you so fascinating, I suppose, that you manage play your own game of joining in and not but still get by.” Bernard is keeping up but he can’t help his head cocking, curious. It seems to push Sir Humphrey to get to his point, He hesitates for a moment first, hand moving to cover his mouth before he moves it aside to say, “I was deeply embarrassed when I had to ask that policeman outside to phone you for permission to come in today,” and he continues despite Bernard’s raised eyebrows, “I care deeply about making a good impression with you, Bernard, even if you appear to believe I only regard you dismissively.”

“...Oh,” he is left to say, unsure what else one is meant to say to a vulnerable revelation like that.

Sir Humphrey emits a small noise of amusement. “Where I could be said by some to be overly verbose the opposite could easily be said of you at times, Bernard.”

“Ah, well... I don’t know what to say,” he defaults to the truth, all he can even think of.

And it makes Sir Humphrey laugh. “Well, was there anything else?” he moves on so simply. “No other keys you wish to deprive me of?” Ah, so he’s still not quite over that. But given he is smiling genuinely again Bernard imagines it will easily pass.

“No, only the feasibility report.” He indicates where he set it down on the desk. “I think you’ll enjoy reading it; it’s very negative.”

“Excellent.” Sir Humphrey does look pleased. “Do you know when you’re next free, Bernard?”

Oh. They’re back to their arrangement already. “Friday, I think.”

“I’ll see you then, in that case. Oh, and make sure they book us a shared room for the upcoming EEC conference,” Sir Humphrey says, already opening the report and sinking into reading it, sat so elegantly and beautiful as always.

Bernard pauses at the door on his way back to look back at that, only too glad about how things have turned out. He does note it isn’t the resolution he intended, instead one that’s simply brought around to Sir Humphrey’s way of seeing things again, but everything is happy once again.

~#~

Jim Hacker, esteemed Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, wakes up to the view of a spinning ceiling.

No wait, a spinning view of a ceiling.

He simply watches it for a moment, wondering where on earth this spinning is coming from, before pressing his eyes shut to put a hand over them and wince.

Deprived of sight he begins to hear properly instead, registering quiet noises nearby he can’t currently place but knows he knows. Turning his head onto its right side, a movement that makes things lurch awfully, he stares into the poorly-dusted darkness under something large and made of fabric, eventually registering it’s some kind of piece of furniture, and then squinting beyond its shadow at a carpeted floor and the edge of some other furnishing covered with some sort of sheet. Whatever that far piece of furnishing was it was producing the noises he could hear at least, the rustling of a sheet moving, light creaking of wood, the springing of some sort of cushioning-

Very gingerly Jim pushes himself up with both elbows, steadying himself each step of the way as he raises himself onto his hands and knees before flailing to put a hand on the side of the close piece of furniture. Pulling himself up over its top edge, he stares in bewilderment as his drunken brain tries to process what he’s seeing in front of him.

Over on the bed Bernard registers the face watching them from behind the sofa first with a small yelp, trying to pull himself away and also the covers up at the same time.

Sir Humphrey takes a moment to work out what has startled Bernard so, himself jumping slightly when he sees before freezing in the utmost awkwardness. “Uhh...” Even he doesn’t know what to say in the situation of realising Jim Hacker is watching over the back of the sofa, slack mouth agape, as his Cabinet Secretary and Principal Private Secretary are engaged in, well, each other.

Jim actually, after a further moment staring, ducks back down behind the sofa before coming back up as if checking this the reality in front of him isn’t just a momentary fluke of hallucination.

Although already covered where it matters anyway, Sir Humphrey takes the moment to seat himself where he can pull the covers up a little higher around his waist, Bernard positioned behind him from Jim’s point of view with his own part of the covers gripped in both hands as if ready to dive under them at any moment.

Jim continues to stare until dry, thick noises come out of his mouth, questions he can’t currently form the words of and isn’t sure he could even in the best of states.

Seeing no one else is apparently going to deal with this predicament, “Um, what are you doing behind the sofa, Prime Minister?” Sir Humphrey asks as if Jim is the only one in the room with some explaining to do.

After a pause, Jim looks around before him and registers it’s a sofa he’s knelt behind and clinging to the back of, “...Oh,” before frowning as he tries to remember the rest of the answer. “Ah. Yes. Annie phoned; Lucy’s engaged,” he finally haltingly recalls.

“Congratulations,” Sir Humphrey says, despite the situation.

“Oh, congratulations,” Bernard also leans forward slightly to say, since it’s only proper.

“Thank you,” Jim accepts, moving onto the next piece of the puzzle. “I decided I needed a drink or two before calling Lucy herself, just for courage. But then, um, I think I forgot that. And I started thinking I was drinking to forget therefore and... well, I don’t remember the rest,” he finishes recounting.

“And how did you come to be behind the sofa in our room?”

Jim looks around again, tilting his eyebrows in a dubious frown. “This is your hotel room?”

“Yes, Prime Minister.”

“Oh,” he says, then with more realisation, “Ohhh, that’s why my key didn’t work.” Feeling and fumbling about himself, he eventually waves his credit card in small triumph before inspecting the scratching it’s now suffered forcing the door lock apparently.

After rolling his eyes, “You’d really think a German hotel would have better security,” Sir Humphrey mutters to himself.

Tucking his card away, Jim leans himself now with both arms folded on the back of the sofa. “More importantly,” he finally begins, “I’ve got a question for _you_.”

The two on the bed shift nervously.

“Bernard,” Jim begins, unable in his present state to parse that Bernard’s frantic expression and hand-waving is trying to signal to him not to say something like, “When precisely were you going to tell me you’re sleeping with Humphrey too?”

Bernard winces hard, fists clenching in the sheets as he pulls in on himself in uselessly weak defence. Though he wants to say something, wishes there was some good answer to the question, he stays guilty silent and hopes the only mild umbrage in Jim’s voice means this won’t go too badly.

Sir Humphrey, “...’too’?” turns to him with a painfully quiet voice, utterly emotionless.

Bernard avoids looking directly at him, opting instead to focus on the groan that has escaped Jim’s paling face. “Prime Minister, would you like a hand back to your room?” Jim grunts something close enough to an agreement, slipping down behind the sofa again for the moment. Shifting over to his side of the bed, Bernard climbs out to walk round the end towards him. “I’ll take him back and stay with him until he’s all right,” he suggests to Sir Humphrey, grabbing a dressing gown to cover himself along the way.

“Yes, I think you’d better stay with him tonight,” Sir Humphrey says, and Bernard registers the cold, clipped tone of it for the first time. Looking at Sir Humphrey he is not pleased at all, actually far past that to a realm of disregard Bernard has never seen. There’s not the anger of the whole key business, or much of anything. Nothing, is what Sir Humphrey is regarding him with now.

He freezes, robe on but sash still unknotted in his hands, until Jim crawling out from behind the end of the sofa forces him to have to leave this matter for now.

Helping Jim up, and taking on the majority of his weight to prevent him falling back to the floor, Bernard takes him over to the door before looking back. Sir Humphrey has already covered the other side of the bed back up, laying down with his back to it and also where Bernard is standing now in quiet coldness, the light still on as if he’s simply waiting for Bernard to leave.

So Bernard does, helping Jim back to his actual room and dealing with his drunken state until he’s safely asleep in his bed to await an awful hangover tomorrow morning.

Looking down upon him, Jim has also turned his back in his sleep; no words passed between them before he fell asleep either aside from the functional ones that needed to.

This is what Bernard gets for wanting too much, he supposes. Why couldn’t he have just settled for enough?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yet more lines/ideas are stolen from the novels.
> 
> Maybe I like to make Jim too much of an alcoholic but I also redeem him too with a bit more integrity than he shows in the TV series/novels.
> 
> Anyway, the plot starts here! Buckle up!


	5. Miscreant

Jim is in a foul mood the following morning, although that may well be his hangover as much as anything. He’s snappy, untalkative and sullen, three very strange things for a politician normally so loving of attention and the sound of his own voice. It’s enough just to focus on helping Jim with his hangover, and he still seems willing to allow Bernard close enough for that. It really doesn’t seem the time to talk about more right now.

He borrows some of Jim’s clothes to dash back to his shared room with Sir Humphrey and change for the day. Perhaps it would have been better to endure the odd looks he would have gotten in his robe and slippers considering the way Sir Humphrey is there waiting – Immaculately dressed in his own clothes already – and looks at him, sharp mind piercing straight through to whose clothes they must be, before instantly turning away to begin packing for their flight back this evening.

“G-Good morning, Sir Humphrey,” Bernard tries to test the waters.

“Good morning,” Sir Humphrey says with the least possible effort and energy, empty of any feeling or actual sentiment; the waters are evidently ice between them.

Cold. That’s really the only way to describe Sir Humphrey right now. It feels worse, more dangerous than Jim’s understandable grumpiness. But perhaps it’s just their own ways of dealing with things.

Bernard hurries to dress and grab today’s paper ready for the final day of the conference, his top priority getting the Prime Minister through that and home safely however much his personal life might be imploding.

~#~

They return to England under more dark clouds than simply the ones drizzling outside the plane as it touches down. Everyone only wants to get home considering they have to be at work tomorrow so Bernard follows suit, shutting his front door behind him once there and then leaning back heavily against it.

His wife finds him still like that five minutes later, staring lost into space with his suitcase on the hall floor beside him.

It only takes a simple, “They both found out,” for her to understand.

Jo responds with, hand on one cocked hip, “What did you expect?” to his evidently pitiful state.

“I expected them never to find out,” he answers honestly, obeying as she begins gesturing for him to get out of his travelling clothes and go freshen up.

She’s saved cold and easy food for him, warming it back up specially this one time considering his current state. She unpacks for him too while he eats, knowing precisely where and how he likes all his things put back after so many years living together. When he finally gets to retire to bed for the night she appears in his bedroom doorway, arms folded but looking over him with fondness nonetheless.

“You look like you could do with some company tonight,” she says.

He considers the fact he probably won’t be sharing a bed with anyone else for a while now thanks to all this, and accepts. Lifting the covers for her, she slips into the other side of his bed just as he’d done when she broke up with his previous girlfriend and the night her father died. It’s the first time she’s had to come join him in his bed though.

Despite getting little sleep last night either Bernard lies back resigned to another sleepless night; he shouldn’t have invited Jo into bed, he’s just going to keep her up as well. But looking at her, he finds he doesn’t know what he can even say.

She is lying on her side, looking at him, and starts the whole thing quite nicely with, “You do know what a numpty you are, right?”

Self-deprecatingly smiling, almost chuckling again for the first time since, he sighs. “Yes, I know.”

“They were bound to find out one day.”

“They were.”

“So what are you going to do now?”

He glances at her in the darkness, and isn’t that just the question? “I don’t know. Sir Humphrey was awfully cold, would barely say a word to me. Jim only seemed put out, though it was hard to tell really.”

“Do you think they’ll forgive you?” His silence says enough to that. “What are you going to do if they don’t?”

Again he glances at her, but then turns to his own ceiling and quiet room.

If either is willing to forgive him, however much he has to grovel, that would be more than he deserves to keep one arrangement in his life. If they would even forgive him enough to continue working together that would be enough.

If neither does though...

If they can’t even forgive him enough to work with him he finally understands why you aren’t meant to have these relationships of unequal power; he’ll be expected to get a new job, won’t he? Maybe one might still hold enough fondness for the sake of old times or general decency to find him a good position somewhere else in the civil service. But maybe he’ll even have to quit all together; were they cruel enough to try and punish him with the Vehicle Licensing Centre...

Bernard shudders slightly, pulling up the covers to hide himself beneath.

He hears a tut, “You didn’t fall out with Basil too, did you?” and then feels the lift of Jo leaning away from him. Dropping the covers to see he finds her presenting his stuffed fox to him, an older sister looking after her silly little brother. He’s not even embarrassed to take Basil and embrace him as they lie back down side-by-side.

His thumb traces over the glass button of Basil’s eye, mind finally facing that question it wants to skip of what he does if he can’t get either back. He watched the difficult year Jo had after losing one girlfriend, after a long time of straining to make it work because they knew it would mean this otherwise, before she was lucky enough to find another. And she had her social support group of professional and elite women like her to find someone else in. He has nothing, no way to even look for anyone else, if he could even bare ever having someone else.

Just as he felt that first night with Sir Humphrey, he fears this may be the start of the rest of his life yet again.

~#~

He slinks into work guilty and tense, looking over a proposal for improving provision for the homeless, particularly for youth and minority groups, in the brief window he gets before heading in to greet the Prime Minister and inform him of his work for the day.

Jim is not happy, frowning his way through the diary read-out and snapping his questions out about the things he needs to be briefed on, but he’s professionally civil in word if not in tone. Bernard finds himself dismissed with a curt, “Thank you,” even at the end of it all, a great relief even if it’s still only a small dent in his mountain of worries. Perhaps Jim still hasn’t made up his mind what he’s going to do, but for the moment the headsman’s axe feels lifted from his neck.

It’s with that hopeful relief Bernard visits Sir Humphrey in the Cabinet Office to ask about the homelessness proposal. He’s sent in by Sir Humphrey’s secretary without question or wait, letting himself in without even knocking on old habit.

Sir Humphrey looks up from his work, scowls, and Bernard instantly knows he’s stepped out onto that ice between them, and it’s very, very thin. “Yes?” Sir Humphrey asks brusquely.

“I-I was just-” Bernard gestures at the report in his hand while also realising he should shut the door behind him at the same time. “I wanted to ask if you’d seen this file on-”

“Of course I’ve seen it,” Sir Humphrey snaps dismissively. “So?”

“Uhh...” Bernard stammers to a stop, not ever having had a solid question so much as automatically expecting to simply chat about it like usual. “Well, I was simply wondering what you thought about it.” He offers his best attempt at a smile, approaching the desk between them.

“What I think?” Sir Humphrey retorts back. “How strange you should care about that now over something as trivial as this but not once think to consult me about the fact you’ve apparently been whoring yourself out as James Hacker’s personal catamite for years!”

By the end Sir Humphrey is practically shouting, the ice having completely cracked with his fury. Bernard flinches back, already biting upon his lip to stop the tears from slipping out onto the carpet he’s staring down at. “I’m s-sorry...” It’s pathetic, both how he says it and even the fact he’s trying to apologise for something like this. He needs to say something, something much more than that, but he isn’t sure there’s enough words even in the whole civil service for this.

He hears Sir Humphrey sigh. Looking up, Sir Humphrey is smoothing a hand over his face and into his hair, cooling himself from the rather emotional outburst he seems uncomfortable about. He glances at Bernard, enough to send Bernard’s own gaze back to the floor, and there’s a moment of silence then before, “You had me completely fooled,” Sir Humphrey says far quieter, truly hurt.

Bernard looks up to see him staring down at his clasped hands on his desk, withdrawn back into that ice but shattered and vulnerable now. “I... didn’t mean to,” he tries, again grasping at anything even when it’s so far from what Sir Humphrey deserves.

“Well, I feel a fool,” Sir Humphrey says. “Even when I noticed marks I didn’t remember leaving I never thought for a moment you would ever be with anyone else. I thought,” His thumbs flex where they’re entwined, “or I suppose I only assumed we had something special, our arrangement, Bernard.”

“We do!” Bernard is too eager to agree. “But ‘special’ isn’t the same word as ‘unique’. A-And I appreciate that while we didn’t say it was to be a monogamous arrangement, we also didn’t say it would not be monogamous either.” Is he trying to defend himself? Fear he supposes, even if he knows his behaviour shouldn’t be defended.

“No, I suppose we didn’t,” Sir Humphrey agrees, still having not looked back up at Bernard. “I... I have a lot of work to catch back up on after the trip,” he says, and that’s all.

It’s left awkwardly hanging for Bernard to pick up the hint and go. He desperately wants to rush over and sweep Sir Humphrey off his feet with the romantic gesture, the right words, that would make all this go away. But of course someone as socially inept and awkward him can think of nothing to do or say. He simply has to leave as requested, hurrying back along the corridors trying to look as calm and emotionless as the civil service always demands.

There’s little peace in the private office adjoining the cabinet room but there is at least work he can bury himself in. Hopefully he can seem simply flustered about that, pulling all his papers into piles around him to give the impression of overload and create that defensive wall he desperately needs right now.

Of course the Prime Minister can break right through though, soon demanding his presence in the cabinet room to discuss the homelessness proposal. Apparently Jim likes it, ‘almost universally popular’ being the phrase he particularly repeats; he wants Bernard to invite his political advisor here to go over it with him, and also doesn’t want Sir Humphrey to come attempt to discuss it with him first.

“Um, I don’t think that’ll be a problem, Prime Minister,” Bernard admits, heading up the length of the cabinet table to make use of the phone at the end.

“Why not?” Jim asks, slightly confused. “Bernard, why not?” he asks again, slightly suspicious.

Bernard glances up but then engages with the telephone instead, using that as his excuse and shield. So long as he’s inviting Mrs. Wainwright to the cabinet room with someone on the other end of the line Jim can’t say anything more or shout at him. He attempts to put the phone down and sweep out with a hasty, “If you’ll excuse me, Prime Minister,” but-

“I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised you snuck behind my back to Humphrey, should I?” Jim manages to shoot his barbed insinuation down the table first, his politician’s quick tongue beating Bernard’s hand to the door handle. His hand flinches back, curling up, and he can’t turn to face Jim behind him. After giving the silence long enough to be suitably punishing with its discomfort, “Just tell me, who was first?”

“First?” Bernard understands the question after a moment, “Oh,” answering without turning back, “Sir Humphrey.”

He hears Jim make a frowning noise, but that’s all. Bernard has to look round to gauge the response and how much trouble he’s in after all, finding Jim appears to have moved from his initial displeasure into a thoughtful realisation that means he must have been irresistible enough to be worth cheating on Sir Humphrey for, or so Bernard guesses.

His sense of propriety demands he ask, “Is that all, Prime Minister?” however much he wants to escape already.

Jim’s apparent mood drops as he looks to Bernard again. He seems to be mulling a number of other questions but settles for sighing, making a dismissive gesture with his hand that signals to Bernard he can go ahead and leave.

He almost wishes Jim had just asked all those questions, if it would have helped sort all this out and get it over with. But like a coward he’s happy to hide instead, to watch Mrs. Wainwright head in and keep his head down at his desk outside. He’s not brave enough to fix this; as awful as his life may now become, Bernard just knows he isn’t.

~#~

Annie glances up from her book as Jim stomps into their bedroom finally that night, heading for the en suite. She even reaches for her bookmark as he slouches back in to grab his night clothes, but he goes back out to have his shower. A security man puts his head in as they always do and she dismisses him for the night; at least they have enough sense to leave a couple alone in bed come the end of the evening.

Finally Jim comes back in and huffs his way into bed, laying himself down on his side away from her and give a large one of his woe-is-me sighs.

“You look just like Lucy when she was a teenager and would strop off to her room to sulk,” Annie can’t help teasing, even though it only makes her husband glare over his shoulder at her. “Like daughter, like father.”

“Hmph,” Jim hmphs at her, turning away again.

Setting down her book with a sigh of her own, “Are you finally going to tell me what you’ve been in such a bad mood about since coming back from the conference?”

“You don’t want to know,” he says in a bitter, little tone.

“I _do _want to know,” she says. “At least if you’re going to keep acting like this otherwise.”

With such a fond, if slightly mocking entreaty, Jim surrenders, struggling up to a seated sulking position. “I found out Bernard’s also sleeping with Humphrey,” he petulantly says, keeping his voice low for safety.

“Bernard?” She sounds more incredulous than anything. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“He doesn’t seem the sort,” Annie says, processing the idea still. “Then again, I was surprised he was willing to sleep with you.” To his raised, and slightly indignant eyebrow, she explains, “He seems so innocent, not the type to be in that sort of arrangement with anyone, let alone two people.”

Jim gives a withering chuckle. “Oh, he’s not as innocent as he looks, I’ll tell you.”

“Even still,” she continues, “he wouldn’t be Bernard if he didn’t mean well behind it all. Do you know why he’s sleeping with Humphrey?”

“Why does it matter?”

“What if Humphrey’s pressuring him into it? I mean, Humphrey is his superior in the civil service, in a way.”

That strikes Jim, enough to make him sit back and straighten his posture a little. “Oh.” His hand rubs over his lower face in thought. “Oh. I didn’t think about that.”

“Does Humphrey know you know?” she asks.

“Most probably; I did catch them in the act of, well, _you know_,” Jim jokes slightly, enough to make his wife’s eyebrows rise.

“Yes, I’d imagine he does know then.”

“Humphrey didn’t seem to know Bernard was also with me though; he was just as surprised as I was,” Jim continues.

“How did Bernard react to the two of you finding out?”

“He seemed guilty,” Jim recollects, frowning his way through the slight fogginess of the memory. “And rather upset actually. Like he’d wanted to keep it a secret mainly.”

“Well, is it any wonder given how you’ve taken finding out?” Annie poses. “How is Humphrey taking it?”

“I don’t know. Not well I think.”

“Bernard could probably predict that; that’s why he never told you.” Her hand came to lay on his, snapping him from the booze-fogged memories of that night. “I’m not defending what he’s done, but I can understand why he didn’t want to tell you. Can’t you?”

Holding her gaze for a moment, then looking away, Jim eventually let it all out in a deep exhale of a sigh. “You’re right.”

“I think you at least owe it to Bernard to hear out his reasons, if he is possibly being pressured into this.”

“Yes,” Jim accepts. “Bernard’s been very loyal really, aside from this. Especially considering I’ve mostly treated him like a glorified mistress,” he supposes, casting a glance at Annie though. “And now you’ve made me feel guilty for being mean to him earlier.”

She chuckles lightly, “Just doing my job, Prime Minister,” leaning over to give him a kiss before they lay down for the night. The light turned off, in the dull light of a central London night, she adds, “Besides, I’ve grown quite used to Bernard being your second ‘wife’; I’m not sure I’d like having to go back to doing all that work myself.”

Annie only laughs as Jim turns over away from her again in play with a hmph.

~#~

The next day brings a morning where Bernard finds Jim’s mood significantly warmer, if still distant.

After their session preparing him for his Prime Minister’s Question Time, when the Parliamentary Questions Secretary leaves them to return to the private office, Jim catches Bernard to stay back. “Go fetch some afternoon tea, will you?” he asks. “For a chat?”

“Um, yes, Prime Minister,” Bernard has to agree, heart jumping in either fearful hope or hopeful fear.

He has a tea lady bring tea and biscuits in but then leave, allowing himself and Jim to relax into the armchairs in the conversation area- Well, Jim relaxes into his chair, practically dropping into it and sprawling with a heavy exhale that really over-exaggerates how arduous the preparation meeting had been. Bernard meanwhile perches just barely on the edge of his seat, pouring tea for them both.

Accepting his proffered cup seems to remind Jim he had been the one to ask for this conversation. He sits up, beginning with, “Bernard, I... I’m sorry for yesterday, if I was rude to you.”

Bernard spooks, trying to even think what Jim what may be talking about. Either way, “Oh, I don’t mind, Prime Minister.”

“No, but...” Jim continues, awkwardly perching his saucer on his lap to fiddle with. “I’m hurt you didn’t tell me about Humphrey,” he starts again. “But I can also understand why you didn’t tell me, or him.”

“Oh.” Unsure whether to be happy they’re discussing this or not, “Thank you,” he says either way.

“Will you tell me,” Jim breaches as delicately as possible, aware of their semi-public location, “why?” He tries to heavily imply something.

“Why what?” He utterly fails, although even Bernard will admit personally he’s often dense when it comes to these things.

“Why Humphrey, and why me,” Jim clarifies.

“Ah,” Bernard understands now, taking a drink from his teacup and setting it back on his saucer to find a good way to start. “Sir Humphrey recognised I was- am... _you know_, and looked out for me, advised me how to keep it safely hidden, and such. In the process he suggested, if I wanted, we could begin an _arrangement_, given it was safer and convenient.”

“Did he pressure you into it?”

Bernard looks up in surprise, then smiles easily. “No, not at all. He made it quite clear it wouldn’t affect our professional lives, although I knew it wouldn’t hurt my career certainly. He’s put no more pressure on me than you ever have, Prime Minister.”

Which leads Jim to ask, “Then why me as well?”

Bernard open his mouth but finds all that comes out is a wordless exhale. “I’m not exactly sure. When you joined the DAA and... Well, you were awfully nice to me, and you’re rather good-looking and all,” He notes how Jim preens while listening, “and I couldn’t resist I suppose, when you offered.”

“Humphrey not enough to _satisfy_ you?” Jim asks with an eyebrow raise.

“It’s not like that,” Bernard answers for Sir Humphrey’s sake before Jim has too much fun at his expense. “Or, well... It’s complicated, Prime Minister,” is the best way he can think to put it. “You weren’t- Or, that is, my arrangement with you wasn’t. Complicated, I mean. I think maybe that’s why I...” Bernard trails off, playing with his fingers uncertainly.

“So old Humphrey’s as complicated in private as at work?” Jim jokes with him. Bernard’s half-hearted shrug takes the glee out of the game though, making Jim sit up properly. “What’s wrong, Bernard?”

“Oh. It’s nothing,” Bernard tries to dismiss, getting on with drinking on his tea.

“Come on,” Jim encourages. “Perhaps I can help.”

Egotistic optimism aside, “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”

“Well, why is it so complicated with him?”

He can already tell Jim thinks this is going to be an easier problem than it is, but something about that unfailing and naive confidence has always been impossible for Bernard to resist. “I... Mainly it’s because I don’t know how he feels about me.”

“‘Feels’?” Jim is already pulling back a bit from the idea of Sir Humphrey and feelings, either the difficulty or bizarreness of it. “Well, Humphrey seems to like you. He seems to find you a little annoying at times, but I also see him get amused by your little Latin and Greek jokes.”

Bernard appreciates the attempt but, “Not like that, Prime Minister. I don’t know... what I am to him,” he tries to put it a new way.

“Oh. Like if he sees you as a friend like I do, or just a work colleague he has an arrangement with?”

“Yes,” Bernard says, brightening as he turns to ask, “You really see me as a friend, Prime Minister?”

“Well... yes,” Jim admits. “We’ve been an awfully good team over the years, haven’t we? Don’t you see me as a friend?”

Feeling a little caught, “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to,” Bernard settles for answering honestly. Jim snorts, assuring him it’s fine to speak freely. “Well, yes, in that case.”

“I can’t imagine Humphrey feels the same way about us though, I’m afraid,” Jim says, which makes Bernard bow his head slightly. “How long have you known Humphrey?” Jim asks. “You were at the DAA together before I arrived, right?”

“Yes, although we didn’t work together often before your arrival. I’ve known Sir Humphrey since a few years after I joined the civil service, nearly twenty years now. I probably would have outed myself and lost my job dozens of times over if he hadn’t taken me under his wing back then,” he admits with a degree of humour.

“Wait, how long have you had your arrangement?” Jim picks up on though.

“Since we first met practically,” Bernard clarifies.

“...Nearly twenty years?” Jim is boggling, sitting forward to set his teacup down before he drops it. “How do...? Why?” he asks, because he knows he wants to ask some question even if he’s not particularly sure which one.

“There’s never been a reason to stop,” Bernard answers simply.

“No, but...” Jim bites upon his lip, trying to muddle through to find the right words. He can see Bernard is a little confused, but that’s the confusing thing here, isn’t it? “You don’t find that strange, how long you’ve been together?”

“Not really. We’ve always enjoyed each other’s company and it works well for both of us.”

“Bernard,” Jim cuts in, pausing for a moment as he tries to think how to break through this impasse. “Most people can’t even make their marriages last twenty years, let alone _arrangements_.”

“Oh. I see,” Bernard nods, sipping at his tea. “I mean, it’s not purely physical though.”

“It’s not?”

“Well,” His face pulls into a pained expression for a moment, “not for me at least,” before he lets it go again quietly.

“...Ah.” And finally Jim understands, though in some ways it only causes him to boggle more. “You’re in love? With Humphrey?” Bernard glances, acknowledging he’s heard, and says nothing to correct or dispute. “And he doesn’t love you back.” This Bernard acknowledges by staring down into his cooling tea. “Bernard...” Jim begins, but all he can do is trail off and stare down into his own tea as well. “I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” Bernard accepts gently.

“For the record, you don’t love me, do you?” Jim checks.

“No, Prime Minister,” Bernard easily answers. “Or, that is, not in the same way. Only as a friend, platonically; I care about you. But I...”

“Love Sir Humphrey.”

“Yes.”

If any civil servant could ever be capable of such a human feeling as pure love Jim supposes it would be Bernard. “Then why me?” he asks, and waits as Bernard struggles to provide any answer except a helpless shrug. “I don’t know many people who could stay so long so close to someone unrequited; you really must enjoy torturing yourself.”

Bernard smiles in self-deprecation. “It’s not as if- Sir Humphrey _is_ fond of me,” he defends. “I think he cares about me, like you do. He just...” He prefers to leave the words unsaid. “I didn’t know what to do, how to... cope anymore. So when you...”

Jim sighs, telling Bernard he can fall silent before he talks himself into tears. “It _is_ complicated, isn’t it?”

“A little,” Bernard agrees with British understatement.

“Maybe he’ll come round,” is all Jim can offer, reaching across to pat Bernard’s knee.

Bernard hopes so, but he also doubts so.

The next day confirms Sir Humphrey has not warmed back to him in any noticeable way, even if enough formality has re-entered his work demeanour to smooth professional interactions between them. The old promise not to let personal matters affect work is still holding as strong as could ever be expected. Bernard can take that.

Still, he wants to again check with Jim that he is still accepting of the whole situation to reassure himself afterwards.

“I don’t see why I should be that upset about you keeping this one thing from me among the thousands of others you routinely do for work,” Jim jokes with him in reply, the good sign Bernard needed.

“That’s not true, Prime Minister,” he therefore replies; “it’s only hundreds at most.” He can even see amusement in Jim’s frown, everything back to normal.

He does have Jim back on his side at least, and to be blessed with the forgiveness of one he may have lost forever is more than enough.


	6. Monster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted to upload a chapter today because of the sad news about Derek's death, to help cheer up any other Yes Minister fans out there. This one is one of my favourites, although I don't think you could call it the happiest, haha.

After a week in such a state, obviously with no home visits, Bernard doesn’t know what to do.

Work goes on, and his arrangement with Jim has returned to its former state as he finds himself invited upstairs one evening when Mrs. Hacker is away. Jim quickly picks up on his unease once there and pressures him into nothing, but Bernard feels awful to confess that his state is all due to still being so lost as to how to proceed with Sir Humphrey.

“Humphrey will never initiate anything, you know what he’s like,” Jim says, settling into his bossy advice mode. “You’ll have to do it.”

“How?” If Jim is oh-so-confident about this, “What precisely should I say?”

“Well...” He’s caught short for words, but his pride makes Jim um and ah until he finds an answer. “Simplicity’s the best thing with these matters. Say to him, ‘Sir Humphrey, I would like to continue our previous arrangement’, or however you want to formally put it. Then the ball’s in his court.”

“Supposing he doesn’t hit it back though?” Bernard says, clarifying, “What if he doesn’t respond? Or just says ‘no’?”

“Hmm. Humphrey would probably be polite enough to respond with something at least, and if he does just ask him why. And keep asking him why until you find what you can do to fix this,” Jim says, pressing his pointed finger down demonstrably as if he’d prepared this sage advice, not simply pulled it out of his arse on the spot.

“Do you really think that’ll work?”

“Works for five-year-olds. Lucy was very good at it.”

Though less than encouraging an example, Bernard supposes the Socratic method may work. Asking questions is easier than answering them, and Sir Humphrey likes to be the one deciding the answer to questions; Bernard will just have to be careful about the answers he’s given. A new question he has now though is, “Why are you helping me with this, Prime Minister? I’m surprised you want to go back to, well, sharing.”

“Bernard, I’m under no false pretences about what our arrangement is,” Jim says. “I’m married to Annie after all, and when I think about it like that I’ve always felt a little bad for you. If anything I’m glad you have someone else. Albeit, that someone else being Humphrey does make things a bit strange.” He takes a moment to look at Bernard, thoughtfully. “I must admit, although I’ll grant he’s handsome and charming, in his way, I fail to understand why you have such deep feelings for him, but each to his own.” Realising, for once, he’s waffling, “I just care about you, I suppose. I don’t like seeing you sad like this,” Jim finishes.

“Oh. Thank you, Prime Minister.” Such kindness makes him blush slightly. Although it would have been even more hopeless to have fallen in love with Jim he could easily imagine having gone down that path instead sometimes.

“I really wouldn’t have thought Humphrey’s the sort for all this in the first place,” Jim continues, sitting back in his side of the sofa. “Handling his sexuality in such a discreet manner, sure. But with a work colleague? Seems rather messy for him.”

“I was convenient. And suitable.” He wonders if the word ‘obedient’ might be more appropriate. “Sir Humphrey doesn’t like change, I suppose.”

“No...” Jim agrees distractedly, thinking. “Do you think he’s ever been with anyone except you? During the time you’ve been together, I mean.”

“No. He said that our arrangement was, in his eyes, ‘special’.”

“‘Special’?”

“I suppose he meant ‘monogamous’,” Bernard shrugs.

Jim frowns though, one finger tapping on his lips. “Humphrey’s the type to have said that though, if that’s what he meant. ‘Special’...”

Bernard raises an eyebrow. He thinks he knows what Jim is hoping, the same he has often hoped, but is certain it’s in vain. “I’ll try what you suggested, Prime Minister,” he simply says.

Letting his ponderings go, Jim nods. “Tell me how it goes.” A bit of an impish grin comes onto his face. “You two would be quite cute together. Weird, but cute.”

Bernard can tell it’s only a facetious joke, but he likes to believe it all the same.

~#~

Bernard broaches the matter on an instance when he has reason to be in Sir Humphrey’s office anyway, circulating high level papers to him that can’t be trusted to anyone lower and collecting Sir Humphrey’s response to the homelessness proposal Bernard already knows Jim isn’t going to like. Once this work is dealt with, he summons his courage and tries what Jim had suggested, “Sir Humphrey, I would like, if you aren’t adverse that is, to continue our previous arrangement, a-as it previously was.” He has to soften it with excess phrases like that, unable to be as direct as Jim could be, but the move is at the limits of his boldness.

And Sir Humphrey looks up with surprise because of that. It’s not long however until he has settled back into the impassive coldness Bernard has grown so familiar with. “Since we are at work and time is of the essence when it comes to the relation of such requests and their responses I will be brief.”

“That was you being brief?”

He’s earned another ticking off for his impertinence with that, but Sir Humphrey is too tired to deliver it right now. “What do you want from me, Bernard?” he asks instead with a beleaguered weariness.

And that in itself is what Bernard doesn’t want, this all being nothing more than a hassle to Sir Humphrey. “I-I want to resume our arrangement, as I said,” he answers, not even sure if he’s interpreting the question correctly repeating himself like this.

“And will you be resuming your other arrangement as well?” Sir Humphrey asks pointedly, and Bernard feels himself flush beneath his suit. He doesn’t answer, staring at his shoes, leading Sir Humphrey to instead continue, “You’ve already resumed it,” his deduction clipped and correct.

Bernard can’t raise his head, dry tongue swiping over his lips but mouth staying silent.

Sir Humphrey stays silent as well this time in punishment.

Put on the spot in such a way, “I-I’m sorry, Sir Humphrey,” Bernard says. “I know you like to know these things-”

“You think I wanted to know about this?” Sir Humphrey scoffs.

Bernard stares at him, wrong-footed and wordless again; it wasn’t simply because he hadn’t known this important fact to know whether he needed to know it or not? Too lost, and only making things worse apparently, “I’m sorry,” Bernard settles for, turning to slink away to the door.

“I don’t know why you even need me now,” Sir Humphrey mutters after him bitterly. Bernard pauses, glancing back. It seems to give Sir Humphrey the cue to continue and get off his chest, “He doesn’t keep it separate from work, does he? I imagine he enjoys the power he has over you, knowing you’ll fall at his feet for everything he wants.”

“He tries,” Bernard answers, no idea how Sir Humphrey can be so incisive as to guess these things. “And he treats me well. Mostly.”

“Do you love him?”

Bernard is shocked by the question, but can easily answer, “No, I don’t love him.”

Sir Humphrey stares at him silently in thought, eventually turning his gaze back to his work in a signal Bernard can go.

And he does, shaking and only further from his goal now.

~#~

“It didn’t work?” Of course Jim is surprised an idea of his didn’t work. “Not even a bit?” His politician’s mind struggles to even understand it. “You must have said it wrong.”

Bernard stirs his tea and lets Jim believe that, if he needs it. “It was the idea of me also being with you that seemed to be his main objection.”

Jim considers this, strutting back towards the armchair and eventually seating himself in it. “I mean, I would be willing to stop, if that was what you wanted,” he begins.

“Really?”

“Bernard, you’re in this voluntarily; if you don’t want to continue anymore then of course we’ll stop,” Jim says honestly, picking up his own tea. “But I wonder if we might not use it to our advantage instead.”

“How?”

“Well, Humphrey’s a man like any other, beneath all the grey suits and paperwork at least. And if the idea upsets him that much perhaps we can use it to prompt some movement from him. Operation Jealousy,” Jim says, now really getting a little carried away.

Bernard scratches at one temple, trying to think of a good way to stop this. “I’m not sure that would work, Prime Minister. I think it might only make matters worse.”

“Why?” Jim asks, feathers ruffled with slight offence.

“Well. He asked if I love you, so I’m not sure if simple animal jealousy will...”

“Humphrey asked that?” Jim’s eyebrows jump briefly, settling deep in thought. “Rather strange for him... Very strange actually...” Thinking on it a little further, “If he asked that does he know how you feel about him?” Jim realises.

“Oh yes. Or, at least, I’ve told him,” Bernard mentions. “He never responds though, that’s the problem.”

“Bernard,” Jim begins somewhat wearily, “you can’t keep leaving out important things like this if I’m going to help you.” Bernard does wonder why Jim is so insistent on helping him still. Doesn’t he have a country he could be running after all? But he supposes politicians are nothing if not meddlers. “What do you mean he doesn’t respond?”

“He... just doesn’t say anything,” he can’t think what more to say. “Or he’ll do something like kiss me to stop me saying any more.”

He can see Jim is caught for a moment thinking about the two of them kissing, a very mixed expression on his face, before he returns to the conversation at hand. “He doesn’t tell you off for it? Or ask you to stop?”

“No.”

Jim considers that. “...We’re going to see Humphrey, come on.” He is already getting out of his chair, half-finished tea left on the coffee table.

“W-Wait, Prime Minister!” Bernard hurries to finish his tea – He can’t be that wasteful – and rush after Jim heading out and into the corridor that leads to the Cabinet Office.

He casts a hurried and apologetic glance to Sir Humphrey’s confused secretary as she searches through papers for any scheduled appointment, but no one is going to question the Prime Minister if he wants to walk into the Cabinet Secretary’s office without even so much as knocking.

Sir Humphrey does not look exactly thrilled to be barged in on during the middle of paperwork, turning positively cross as he sees the sight of Jim and Bernard together.

Jim glances back to check Bernard has had the sense to shut the door before beginning, “Look, Humphrey,” having strolled right up to the other side of Humphrey’s desk and put his hands all over it. “I wasn’t exactly happy either but I wouldn’t have expected you of all people to make such an emotional fuss over all this.”

Sir Humphrey looks truly sour, not only annoyed Jim is bringing this up at work of all places but that Jim is bringing it up at all to his face.

“You’re putting Bernard in a frightful state,” Jim continues, and Bernard baulks nervously behind him. “He is younger than us after all; he can’t help his hormones,” Jim tries for a bit of levity, and Bernard winces painfully before shaking his head.

“It’s not about that,” is all Sir Humphrey will spit out in answer. “And if you don’t mind I would prefer not to discuss this.”

“Well I do mind,” Jim replies almost on instinct, learning himself forward over the desk to face down Sir Humphrey. “And I remember A-level English Lit too.” Sir Humphrey’s gaze shifts over to look past and appeal to Bernard to make sense of this madman’s non-sequiter, but Bernard can only look just as lost. “Frankenstein’s creation needn’t have been a monster, it was only a lack of love received and given that made him so.”

Sir Humphrey begins to process the gall of the comparison that is being made, his hands resting on the desk clenching up while his face remains stone.

“You make a lot more sense like this,” Jim continues, “how you can so completely not care about the good work we are trying to do for people out there, how you can be so utterly lacking in compassion.” He makes a small noise of laughter. “It’s quite obvious friends like Frank wouldn’t hesitate to stab you in the back if they could get ahead, no love lost there. And let me guess, cold family? Parents sent you away to private boarding school as soon as they could be rid of you, just do the family name proud and all that?” He leans in finally. “And no one to love but yourself.”

Bernard has never seen Sir Humphrey in such a state, jaw clenched and flushed face pink with anger. Nerves very deeply struck, he looks as if he’s about to sock Jim in the face any second; Bernard wonders what the protocol for dealing with a civil servant physically assaulting an elected official is. “You know nothing about me,” Sir Humphrey manages to impressively grit out without openly losing his temper. “I will _not_ discuss my personal life with _you_, Prime Minister.” He begins to slip here and there in that one.

It’s enough that Jim pulls back, smirking in smug triumph that’s really a bit much, before turning to walk out and deliberately leave Sir Humphrey in such a state.

Bernard follows, casting a glance at Sir Humphrey who has looked away but looks no better in mood, before slipping away once Jim is safely back in his office reading security briefs. Then Bernard returns along the corridors to the Cabinet Office, lying to Sir Humphrey’s secretary he forgot something and letting himself back in.

Sir Humphrey is still staring away into space, not returned to his work unusually for him, with most of that fury left even if it has gone cold and hard now. He is delayed in looking up at his visitor, and Bernard wastes no time in saying, “I’m so sorry, Sir Humphrey. I-I had no idea he would- He just suddenly jumped up and said he was going to see you, I couldn’t stop him-”

“It’s fine, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey accepts tiredly, anger dropping and leaving a weary hollowness again. “I know you would never have organised such a thing. I don’t blame you for that... for his complete and utter lack of tact and grace,” he is returning now to the previous gritted expression as he goes on.

“It’s a shame we can’t keep them on leashes,” Bernard offers, and although Sir Humphrey doesn’t laugh or look amused as he might once of it does relax him back to that tired state. “And, um, for what it’s worth I know the Prime Minister is wrong about you; you _are _a very caring person, quite passionate actually- That is, in an emotional sense, I mean,” he hurriedly clarifies, blushing slightly. “It’s just that the things you care about don’t align with most people’s, which makes sense with all you know that they don’t and the fact that, um...” He stares down at his shoes, always the safest option whenever he opens his foolish mouth like this and prattles on.

“...Thank you, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey says, and glancing up Bernard can see a small and faint smile on his face. “I know my opinions and advice may often be unpopular and difficult to hear but even I don’t enjoy being thought a monster because of it.”

Bernard nods readily. He waits, but nothing more is said. Sir Humphrey still appears to be in that weary, cooled state, and after all the damage he has done lately Bernard is smart enough to think to himself this time that he should quit while he’s ahead. “I’ll be going now,” he announces politely, and receives a nod. “I won’t involve the Prime Minister in... this anymore,” he also thinks to promise. “Although I believe he thinks he means well he doesn’t really understand.” Sir Humphrey snorts lightly at that. “Good day,” Bernard excuses himself, slipping out of the office.

He leaves Sir Humphrey behind alone.

~#~

Bumble’s head twitches under his hand, some canine dream he presumes, until his human ears pick up the sound of footsteps entering the room. None of their dogs wake, not the one on his lap nor the two lying by the lit fireplace, as Humphrey looks up.

“It’s strange, seeing you not knowing what to do,” she says, just the slightest fond hint of amusement.

“How do you know I don’t know what to do?” he plays back.

“Or else you’d be doing it,” she simply says as she sits down on the opposite seat.

And he’ll give her that, gladly outplayed. “You’re the same, you know, Evelyn.”

“Yes, but we’re not talking about me,” his wife says, folding herself gracefully into a corner of the seat, ready to be there a while. Humphrey sighs, realising he’s trapped by the sleeping dog on his lap. “I can take it you’re past merely wanting to be angry at Bernard into trying to decide what to do about this?”

Rather than face her he returns to staring into the tepid flames, smoothing a hand over the soft fur of Bumble’s ear. “...I think the hardest thing is that he’s still the same person,” he begins in a distant voice. “I thought that he must have been putting up a façade with me all these years, that the Bernard I thought I knew would never have done that, but...”

“You don’t truly know him after all, as you thought you did, and now he feels like a different person, not the one you agreed to be in a relationship with,” she says so easily for her. “You need to decide again if you wish to continue with this new person, or not.”

He can’t help but pull a slightly strained smirk. “Thank you for taking pity on this poor male who can’t work such emotional matters out on his own,” he responds dryly, making her laugh. Humphrey turns aside again then though, “Especially this one who’s always been particularly useless at it...”

“You’re not useless, Humphrey; you can understand all those silly, emotional politicians perfectly. You’re simply... emotionally long-sighted, unable to see so clearly once the matters are too close to you,” she puts tactfully.

It brings a bit of a smile back to his face, still unable to look at her right now. “...You speak of me not truly knowing Bernard but it’s not as if he knows me wholly either, my father and such. If he knew about my past...” He covers his lower face with a hand, gaze turning to the floor. Finally removing it, “He would no doubts be having the same second thoughts then, if he would even continue to consider me at all. I keep wondering if perhaps I’m being too harsh, in light of that.”

“He’s been lying to you for years, and doing this behind your back at the same time; that is completely different to everything you’ve put behind you, Humphrey,” she assures him firmly.

“I can see that conscience of his is torturing him because of this.”

She tuts. “You’re too soft on him.” He considers taking issue, but at the risk of waking Bumble on his lap if he moves, he leaves it. “He wouldn’t have done this in the first place if he had an honest conscience.”

“He does...” Humphrey murmurs, but of course that then begs the question, “Why did he do this...?”

Folding her arms in thought and staring at the same flames as him, “Would there be any reason that would excuse it?” she asks.

He doesn’t answer, only continues staring into those flames. “...Earlier, after Hacker harangued me again for being an emotionless... monster, Bernard told me he could tell I do care about things. He understands me as well as ever. He’s still the same person, Evelyn,” Humphrey says, talking them back in one of his political circles.

“Do you want to continue with him?”

He only continues to gaze so emptily into the fire.

After a moment of hesitation, she stands from her seat, coming over to sit beside him on his. Humphrey does turn to her, watching where her hand comes to join his smoothing Bumble’s fur. “You recently told him how much you care about making a good impression on him, didn’t you? Would you be willing to tell him such a thing now?”

“I...” he tries to answer too quickly, before finding he really needs to think on it. “...I still trust him, fool that I am,” he eventually says.

“That wasn’t an answer, Humphrey,” she points out, sharper than anyone.

“No, it’s not,” he’ll confess to her. Thinking again, as he watches Bumble twitch and kick at something he’s dreaming of, “...I wouldn’t tell him about my past, Evelyn,” Humphrey says. “But... I think it’s because I fear he would leave,” he confesses in a conflicted voice.

She sits with him in silence for much of the remaining evening, an arm placed around his shoulders so he can lean against her, until she can sense he needs to be left alone. With a chaste kiss, she leaves him with the dogs and the fading remains of the fire he is still staring into unsatisfied.


	7. Mediator

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for waiting for this update. Derek's death made it a little hard to face watching or writing anything Yes Minister for a while and it's becoming a bit harder to write as I'm still not precisely sure how this story is going to end. But it will end! I'll get there somehow...

He manages, with only a small and tolerable bit of exaggeration, to convince Jim to stay out of his personal matters going forward. Bernard breathes a silent exhale of relief that Jim was convinced by the idea Sir Humphrey, being a mere and lowly civil servant, couldn’t handle the emotional truths Jim had laid on him. As long as Jim doesn’t bring this little excuse up to tease with, all should be in the clear.

Jim mentions his wife will be away that evening, leaving the implication open. Bernard hesitates long enough though that Jim asks, “No?”

“I... I don’t know, Prime Minister,” Bernard confesses, still torn and lost. After making Jim wait long enough while he still can’t explain himself, he simply says, “Would you love me, if not for Mrs. Hacker?”

And to his credit Jim takes it with a very gracious smile. “I’d be a different man without Annie and Lucy, Bernard, so I really can’t say,” he replies in a positive but steady voice.

Bernard goes to nod but ends up bowing his head. What a nice way of saying ‘no’; Jim’s politician skills of not directly answering questions can come in very useful at times.

Sparing them both by moving onto business, “Bernard, I want you to set up a meeting later today with both Dorothy and Humphrey to talk about this homelessness proposal,” Jim says, slightly surprising Bernard who had thought the Prime Minister had forgotten about that. “I wasn’t happy with Humphrey’s response,” As expected, “and Dorothy’s had enough time to prepare various strategies to get around his objections over the past week now.” Ah. “We want to challenge him with them, to see if he’ll be able to wriggle out of them or not.” Jim grins slightly, showing his canines, before catching Bernard’s attention with a point of his finger. “I don’t want Humphrey to know that though. It’s just a normal meeting to him. No sneaking around behind my back.”

“I understand, Prime Minister,” Bernard complies, heading off to make the arrangements.

He visits Sir Humphrey directly when it comes to inviting him, and mention of the Prime Minister’s political advisor also attending is enough to elicit the question, “_She’s_ involved herself with this, has she?” which would be rude not to answer.

“Yes, at the Prime Minister’s request.”

Bernard watches to the thoughtful silence, the soft, “I see,” that means Sir Humphrey has grasped a lot from such simple words. It’s not that Bernard meant to pass along any information as such, only that it does feel jolly unfair for the Prime Minister to be going into this prepared and with reinforcements while Sir Humphrey is left without. Bernard supposes it is his affection at play; he just can’t help it. “Was there something else?” Sir Humphrey asks, and Bernard startles back to the present to find a raised eyebrow regarding him.

“Oh. No, Sir Humphrey,” he answers politely, nodding his head he’ll be going now-

“Bernard,” Sir Humphrey begins, and Bernard pauses. The request had been an uncertain one though and Sir Humphrey doesn’t seem to know what to follow it with. Eventually Bernard senses to come closer, to the opposite side of the desk, and it’s enough to prompt the question, “Do you have time to discuss some personal matters now?”

“Um,” Bernard makes a show of checking his watch but whatever his schedule might have contained, which he forgets at this moment anyway, can be rescheduled he decides, “I believe so.”

Sir Humphrey nods, tongue touching lightly at his lips in a rare display of human hesitancy, before he quietly begins, “Why did you begin relations with the Prime Minister as well? You told me you do not love him, so was I wrong in my assessment of you as someone who considers such sentiments an important part of having physical relations?”

“You weren’t wrong, Sir Humphrey,” he begins on the easier question first. “But while I do not have the same feelings for him which I have for you, which is what I understood that question to mean when you asked me it, I still have some feelings for him as a friend, which is also enough.”

The answer seems to confuse Sir Humphrey somewhat, not that he will show it past being uncharacteristically silent for a while. “And the first question?” he eventually prompts.

Bernard struggles, and eventually defaults back to how he answered the same for Jim. “It was complicated, our relationship between you and I. The appeal of one with him was that it wouldn’t be, that it would be as our arrangement, between you and I that is, was originally intended to be.”

“It hasn’t evolved into anything more?”

Bernard can shake his head. “He only makes me feel desired, not loved.”

Sir Humphrey studies him with a distant, almost forlorn for a moment, expression before he tells Bernard, “Men like ourselves don’t get to be loved, Bernard. I don’t mean the average homosexual on the street, but instead people like us in powerful positions with too much to lose. This,” He gestures at their general situation, “this is all we get.”

“Arrangements, you mean?” Bernard wants to clarify.

“You always do ask for too much, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey says fondly, “whether it be clear consciences or this.”

Bernard bows his head, feeling some shame from the words, but he can’t help shaking it too as he lifts it back up. “No,” he actually disagrees. “We do get to have more, because, at the very least, I know I’m in love with you.” He watches Sir Humphrey turn aside from that as ever, but this time, “I’ve been saying that to you for years. Don’t you think I mean anything by it?”

“Bernard,” Sir Humphrey answers wearily, “this sort of fondness and affection between us isn’t ‘love’. Anyone would expect such feelings to grow between two people who have spent so many years in the intimate company of one another.”

“That’s what you think I mean?”

With a fond smirk, “You have always had a tendency for being rather overly emotional when you talk about these things,” Sir Humphrey says.

“Sir Humphrey,” Bernard steps right up to the opposite side of the desk, placing his hands earnestly on it, “I would marry you if I could.”

Bernard has never seen Sir Humphrey this shocked before. Even Sir Humphrey doesn’t think he has ever been this shocked before, not even when Jim had circulated that memo extraterrestrial contact had been made and their DAA was being repurposed into the Department for Alien Affairs as an unlabelled April Fool’s joke. “You... You can’t be serious,” is Sir Humphrey’s reply to that idea.

“I am!” Bernard tries to insist, though he’ll admit he can never put the gravitas he means to into these things like other people.

He tries to accept it therefore when Sir Humphrey responds to that with a dismissive little snort. “You wouldn’t really, if you knew what it would mean,” he says almost sounding weary, gaze going aside.

Bernard opens his mouth to protest, to maybe ask some sort of question about what would make Sir Humphrey think that, but he has enough of going round in futile circles during their normal work conversations. “What do you want then?” he asks instead, clarifying, “To return our arrangement to its previous state?”

“Whether you mean to simply resume our previous activities or by some magic go back to blissful ignorance, no thank you,” Sir Humphrey says. “You continue to misunderstand; it was not the finding out that upset me in this case, Bernard.”

In that case, “I could stop, with the Prime Minister,” Bernard can offer genuinely, the reason he had asked what he did earlier this morning. “But there was a reason I entered into that arrangement after all.”

“Because what we had wasn’t enough?” Sir Humphrey puts it, lacing his hands on leant elbows before him. “So, unless I provide you with what you want you won’t stop?”

“It’s what I _need_,” Bernard says, forcing himself to draw himself up in the best display of self-assurance he can manage.

“You appear to have confused wants and needs, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey can easily tell him though, and Bernard’s spine sags slightly. “There’s nothing wrong with having considerable wants, but please don’t confuse them for needs. It’s hardly as if you’ll perish without it.”

Having wilted back to normal, Bernard stays silent from both uncertainty and a wish to preserve what progress they have made this conversation. This appears to be it for now though, and it seems safer to give up at the impasse than force things further and relapse.

Making an acceptable work-related excuse, Bernard leaves Sir Humphrey and matters there.

~#~

Bernard watches Sir Humphrey enter the scheduled meeting with a ‘business as usual’ demeanour, observing the presence of Mrs. Wainwright with no great pleasure but not the antipathy he sometimes displays towards her.

The Prime Minister begins it all, making his support of the proposal to improve national provisions for the homeless through drastic increase of supported accommodation clear. His political advisor will obviously be backing him in it, sat at his righthand ready.

Sir Humphrey makes his objection to the proposal equally clear, though somehow without giving any actual reasons. When he is pressed on this, “Those of no fixed abode are unable to register to vote, Prime Minister, and when they do they tend to blame the incumbent government for their situation and vote against them. It’s sending good money after bad,” Sir Humphrey says, although Bernard knows it’s actually because the proposal involves giving money and power to local authorities previously wielded by Whitehall.

But the words work as intended, Jim gaining a wavering look of worry that Dorothy slightly rolls her eyes at. “The number of homeless individuals is tiny compared to the potential support such a benevolent act could gain from the rest of the population,” she delivers, causing Sir Humphrey’s face to sour slightly at being played at his own game.

“Exactly,” Jim agrees on her point. Bernard wonders how to record the exchange in the minutes without making Jim seem like the publicity-seeking vacillator he in reality is.

“Besides,” Dorothy continues, taking control of the conversation, “whom people are likely to vote for shouldn’t be a deciding factor in political decisions,” Jim looks as if he’s about to waver again, “should it, Prime Minister?”

“Ah,” Jim is caught. “No. Quite right. Politics is about doing what’s right, not just what’s popular,” he says, locking himself in.

Sir Humphrey very briefly and silently sighs to himself in defeat; when a politician starts quoting themself no rational argument can battle such ego. He is obviously loathe to be forced into the specifics Bernard watches him now address, the Prime Minister’s political advisor having a counter ready for each though with the time she’s been given to prepare. Jim seems caught between their arguments, but overall seems to be as politically on his political advisor’s side of this table discussion as he is literally.

The whole thing soon devolves into a debate over the principles involved, Mrs. Wainwright posing, “So you think people made homeless deserve no help, even when it’s no fault of their own?”

“Well, sparing an act of God destroying their home – Which could be argued is the church’s responsibility and not the government’s,” Sir Humphrey replies, grinning briefly in self-amusement, “I fail to see how it could be no fault of their own.”

“A woman who leaves her home to escape an abusive partner, that’s her own fault?”

“As unenviable as the theoretical situation is, she has still made a choice to leave,” Sir Humphrey answers, and even Bernard feels his face creasing slightly in a frown at such an attitude.

Mrs. Wainwright’s expression is far more intense, practically a gape. “You really have no sympathy for such a case?”

“Sympathy for the theoretical situation, certainly,” he says with a small nod of sincerity. “But when a person can make a choice between toughing an unpleasant home situation out or leaving, one can hardly then go on to complain after making that choice about not having a roof over one’s head.”

“Even if staying might eventually result in her abusive partner murdering her?”

“She ought to surely go to the police in that case; that’s what they’re there for.”

Mrs. Wainwright is simply forced to sigh, giving up the particular example for now. “So whereas I, and any sane person,” She looks to Jim who seems to have been happier simply observing this little sparring match, “would consider such things needs, to you they’re merely wants.”

“Look, in an ideal world I agree it would be wonderful to provide a free home for everyone,” He says in a tone that is trying to win back some moral footing and draw the Prime Minister to his side. “But people have to choose; they can’t have everything. And we only have so much to go around. If we fund this scheme questions will be asked about what else has had to go by the wayside for it.”

“Will they?” Jim asks his political advisor, concern beginning to sway him.

She only continues to focus her gaze on Sir Humphrey across the table though, staring him down pointedly in silent thought. He raises an eyebrow, head cocking, not the enquiry it might seem but instead she can read the taunt to come at him with something else he can enjoy parrying. “...What would you do if you were made homeless?” she finally poses.

“Me?” Sir Humphrey repeats, on the edge of laughter.

“Say your wife kicked you out,” Mrs. Wainwright offers with pleasure.

This time Sir Humphrey does chuckle. “Impossible,”

“Oh?”

“She would never do it. The particulars of our marriage,” he waves it off as.

Mrs. Wainwright is obviously deeply intrigued, but professional enough to continue, “What if it was when you were a teenager then? If your parents had turned you out without a penny.”

This time he looks surprised, replying, “I fail to imagine what possible reason they could have had, if I am to entertain this scenario.”

She inhales to give herself time, gaze searching without particular focus around the room, before proposing, “I don’t know, what if you had come out as gay?”

Bernard feels his eyebrows shoot up, as high as he can see Jim’s has, not that thankfully Mrs. Wainwright is paying attention to either of them. Instead she is still looking at Sir Humphrey where the other two in the room also turn to now, finding a sharp look of shock upon his face as if he has been slapped with ice water. He’s still just composed enough not to attract any suspicions, only looking as if the idea has come out of nowhere to him, but Bernard glances to Jim who is also sharing a knowing glance to see if either of them have any idea how he is about to respond. “...Well,” Sir Humphrey eventually begins, clasped hands and steady expression putting up a solid mask of normality, “surely such a child could sense such an announcement would be unwelcome and simply not make it.”

She makes a small, mocking sound. “Just grin and bear it?”

“I doubt any grinning would be involved,” he responds with a plainness that suggests it is covering for something; Bernard can practically see from the measured and uncomfortable face that Sir Humphrey has personal history there.

“Be flippant if you must,” Mrs. Wainwright says, and something pained tugs tinily at his features, “but what would you have done? What would you do if you found yourself on the street, Sir Humphrey?”

His features pulled tight in thought, before he has a chance to respond though, “Go to a friend’s house and crash on their chaise longue?” Jim jokes, pleasing himself and earning a small laugh from his political advisor.

It is probably the smartest move that Sir Humphrey opts to look at his watch, “If you will excuse me, as fascinating as this discussion of impossible theoreticals has been in wasting our time, I’m afraid I have another meeting in five minutes.”

“Another meeting?” Jim asks, hovering between dubious and offended someone else could be more worthy of Sir Humphrey’s time than him.

“Yes,” Sir Humphrey says, regaining his usual self. “I had expected this meeting to stay on topic discussing the actual proposals and thus have reached an agreement by this time,” His gaze is pointed at Mrs. Wainwright across the table, “but as they have not I’m afraid you’ll have to excuse me.” He begins to collect his papers back into his file.

The two across the table were unable to really say anything to that, watching him stand and politely leave.

While they continue discussion in the Cabinet Room, Bernard lets himself out now it can be argued his job of minuting the meeting is complete to follow down the corridors that lead to the Cabinet Office. He isn’t particularly surprised to be noticed before long, Sir Humphrey having paused at the green baize door while bringing out his key, a little touch that makes Bernard smile uncomfortably right now, to look backwards at the obvious footsteps following him. “Yes?”

“Ah...” He really shouldn’t say why he has actually followed Sir Humphrey, but in the increasing absence of anything else to say instead, “I, um- Mrs. Wainwright’s final theoretical proposed situation didn’t upset you, did it? You just seemed a bit...”

“I’m fine, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey answers with a similar plainness to the meeting. He stares down at the key in his hand though, not actually using it.

“Right,” Bernard accepts, clasping his hands behind his back to convey his humble formality that he would leave it there. Only, “I’m sorry, that your parents were like that,” he needs to sincerely say before it can be dropped.

This time he is the one to surprise Sir Humphrey, but it’s a gentler surprise that settles into melancholy, and then a nod.

As Sir Humphrey makes use of his key, letting himself back past that dividing door, Bernard can see at least a faint smile back on his lips, and that is enough.

...

...

...

Her head appearing from around the corner as Bernard walks away, Dorothy Wainwright steps out and makes her way down to the green baize door; she hadn’t overheard what they had said, but her female intuition is more than sufficient.


	8. Mediary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This scene with Humphrey and Dorothy at the start was one of my favourite in this whole work to write. Actually I loved all the women in this chapter :3

Sir Humphrey pushes his Cabinet Office door shut behind him with muscle memory, enough power to close it without having to look.

That’s why he doesn’t realise it is caught in a hand before closing, not until his brain catches up and registers the lack of the sound he is used to around the point he has already crossed the room to his desk. He is too far away therefore to throw that impossible woman back out of his office before she is the one to close his Cabinet Office door behind her, firmly planting herself between him and it. “Yes?” he asks pithily.

“What were you talking about with Bernard just now, out in the corridor?”

“Nothing that you need concern yourself with,” he answers pleasantly, approaching and trying to gesture her towards the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, dear lady, I do have a meeting imminently, if you recall.”

Dorothy stands firm though, confounding him slightly as he is left standing there frozen in his unappreciated gesture. “What’s really going on, Humphrey?” she asks plainly. “You don’t have a meeting now.”

“And how would you know that?” he asks, trying to find a way to enjoy this.

And he might have, up to the moment she simply ducks past him to go to his desk, the gall of it stunning him motionless, and pick up his diary for the day. “See?” She turns to him with it presented. “No meeting.”

He snatches it back from her, such crudeness necessary and forgivable in a situation such as this. “It’s a private meeting- That is, one with too high a level of security clearance to be in here.” She stares at him unconvinced from beneath long eyelashes. “...Fine,” he eventually admits. “What do you want?”

“You’re acting strangely,” she says, earning a rather derisive look from him as he walks around his desk to his seat. “I want to know why.”

“I imagine you do,” he takes a puckish pleasure in replying.

She rolls her eyes at him. “Well, it was already obvious it wasn’t something you wanted to tell me,” Dorothy begins, considering him as she works through it. “Your behaviour’s different to when you normally have something to hide though; I don’t sense any particular ulterior motive this time.” He responds with a naively innocent expression that has no idea what she might mean by that. “There’s nothing else larger going on this might be some part of-”

“Not that you know about,” he can’t resist indulging in a little impish glee by saying.

“So this must be something novel, something unusual for you.” She considers him again while he awaits her next move. Then something seems to strike her. “A personal issue perhaps?”

Sir Humphrey really tries not to betray it with his face. It’s simply too infuriating to witness her be right though.

“I see!” Dorothy now takes the glee in confirming. “Well, I shouldn’t pry,” she notes politely.

“Thank you,” he says with too much hope that’s the end of it.

“But perhaps I can help, being a woman,” she suggests. “After all, that’s all we’re good for, isn’t it?” He raises an eyebrow in curious innocence. “Personal, private things. Not actual government work.”

Expression pinching, because it’s so very obvious she’s just rubbing the matter in, “No, thank you,” Sir Humphrey manages.

“Are you sure?” He looks up at her as if to ask, ‘Are you serious?’ in reply. “All right, I know I shouldn’t be teasing you about it, and you’ll probably never trust me now,” Dorothy says more seriously. “But if it’s to do with your wife for instance, if talking to a woman would help...” she leaves the offer open though understanding he probably won’t take it.

She actually makes him laugh just slightly with it. “I suppose one could say it’s sort of to do with my ‘wife’, in a way,” he jokes to amuse himself and confuse her. “But I assure you I do not need help with the matter, and certainly not from you, my dear lady.” Hopefully this will be enough of a suggestion for even her to grasp.

But alas, confusing her only seems to have rooted her to the spot, staring at him in deep thought. He gives her the benefit of his considerable patience, regretting it immensely when she eventually comes out with, “It wasn’t the topic of your wife that made you give that pathetic excuse before, or even parents. It was when I brought up homosexuality,” and the word lingers in the silent air between them. “...Humphrey, are you-?”

“Don’t be absurd,” he dismisses, timing slightly off and they both know it.

“What we be absurd about it? You don’t think anyone gay could rise as high as you have? Or that they could come from such a privileged background?”

“I’m married,” he points out in protest.

“So am I,” Dorothy replies. “Doesn’t mean I’m straight.” Sir Humphrey actually rears back slightly, staring at her with the most boggled and disoriented expression. “You heard me,” she continues calmly, returning his gaze steadily.

“You’re...?”

“Bisexual, to be precise.” She sees how he narrows his eyes. “Mutually assured destruction. We may not like each other,” He interrupts to bark with laughter, “but I want you to know I would never out you against your will.”

“I never confirmed that I am-” She narrows her eyes at him now, deadpan. He sighs. “Fine. I would also considerable it ungentlemanly to ever mention your personal matters as well.”

“Good,” Dorothy nods. “So what is your great problem then? You can’t simply have been worried the Prime Minister would find out; you wouldn’t have been talking to-” It strikes her. “Bernard knows?”

“We were discussing a different matter, actually,” he says.

“Of course you were,” she persists in a doubting tone. “It’s not the sort of thing you would have told Bernard though- Not unless... I did always get that vibe from him,” Dorothy muses.

“If you are done with your wild and baseless speculations,” Sir Humphrey begins with strong implications towards the door, trying to lead the conversation to some conclusion or other that will rid his office of this woman.

“Look, I can help you, Humphrey,” she appeals. “I understand.”

“You understand nothing.”

“Then tell me about it!”

“If I do require any assistance with my personal life,” he says with deliberately poor concealment of his irritated disdain, rising from his chair if he must to show her finally and forcibly towards the door, “you can be certain I will never seek it from you, dear lady.”

Dorothy lets herself be ushered, only because she can say, “My offer will always stand, Humpy,” and leave with a self-satisfied smile and sour frown on his face.

“Bloody woman,” sums it up nicely as Sir Humphrey shuts the door behind him, finally returning to his work.

~#~

“I have warned you,” she says as they leave their coats to walk down the dimly-lit hall leading to the main hall.

“Indeed you have.”

“And you haven’t listened, Humphrey.”

“I fail to see how it can possibly be as bad as you seem intent on making out, Evelyn,” Sir Humphrey replies, both falling temporarily silent as he enters the main hall beside his wife. Sidling up close where they can continue in murmurs, “This is Bernard we’re talking about after all. And at a public party no less. I’ve never known him to be anything less than proper, however much he may not be the social butterfly type to enjoy them.”

“It’s not him you’re going to have a fit about,” his wife sighs, her defeat in this argument accepted as she hears him scoff at her words.

The function hall at the Victoria & Albert is politely packed, milling guests admiring the works brought out of the museum archives to grace the party’s walls with culture and conversation starters. Taking two flutes of champagne from the table where they have been arranged, Sir Humphrey delivers one back to his wife who seems so eager to guide him over to a far and less-favoured side of the room, “to get it over with,” as she says; honestly, women can make such big deals out of the smallest of things.

Quite luckily, his wife’s fingers find the bottom of his champagne flute just in time to stop it slipping from his hand and smashing to the floor when he is greeted with the sight of Bernard and his wife. “What _on Earth_ are you wearing?”

Looking down at herself, “Clothes,” Bernard’s wife answers rather facetiously, enjoying seeing Sir Humphrey gape repeatedly at the simple sight of her.

Eventually Sir Humphrey finds the words again to demand, “Bernard, what were you thinking allowing your wife to attend in such a state?”

Bernard’s eyes widen with a ‘Who, me?’ owlishness. “What’s wrong with how Jo’s dressed?”

“What’s wrong?!” Sir Humphrey gestures as if it should be obvious.

“I did warn you...” his own wife adds, shaking her head.

“I think she looks rather good,” Bernard personally says, looking over Jo in her navy trouser suit.

“She’s wearing a suit!”

“She doesn’t like dresses,” he says simply, noting the elegant and classic navy gown Sir Humphrey’s wife has come in that’s almost the exact feminine counterpart to his own wife’s clothing. “What does it matter?”

There are so many answers Sir Humphrey apparently needs to give to that question that they all crash together trying to escape his mouth, leaving him wordless once again. He eventually sighs, pressing his fingers to his forehead as if he already has a headache, and deplores, “In private I could just about bear the ridiculous way I’ve seen the two of you act over the years, but I would have intervened long ago had I known you were embarrassing yourselves and everyone acting this way in public.” The two being scolded turn to one another, smiles of childish naughtiness enjoying themselves immensely.

“If you’re unaccomplished enough that you have to settle for an inferior man,” Evelyn continues, looking at Jo, “it’s your duty to properly train them, not further indulge your own bad habits with them.”

Bernard looks at Sir Humphrey, an example of a superior man not in need of training he supposes, as his own wife jokes to him, “You can tell why they like pet dogs. You ought to be careful or he,” She indicates Sir Humphrey, “will start putting a collar on you too.”

“He does, actually. Or has at least,” Bernard can’t resist admitting to Jo’s amusement and the horror of the other two.

“You obviously made a rare error in judgement pairing these two, Evelyn,” Sir Humphrey now turns on his own wife.

“I thought, considering your interest in him, I was working with better material,” she shoots back, while the pairing in question simply smirk to themselves behind juice glasses.

“This is my fault?!” he hisses.

“Sounds like it might be her girlfriend’s fault,” Jo suggests in a low tone of the other woman. “You should spend a little more time together; might make you less uptight.”

The scandalised expression hits the faces of the other married couple with a perfect synchronicity, while Bernard tries to keep himself composed with a small cough.

Leaving the two childish troublemakers, as his wife suggests, seems a highly sensible idea before it does their reputation any damage by association. Still, Sir Humphrey finds his gaze drifting back to the other couple during the times he is listening to the polite conversations he and his wife mingle with. Standing on the sidelines like that, Bernard and his wife seem completely unperturbed by their lack of company, glad of it even, only needing each other. No one else seems to be giving them a second glance and they don’t care in the slightest. How nice it must be, to act as naively as children, innocent even to the damage they are doing their potential.

Still...

His wife moves into a group of women, a few within he recognises as friends of hers, and no one thinks it strange or improper for him to remove herself from her side. No one notices him being drawn back to where Bernard and his wife are still standing and amusing themselves in their own little world, people-watching by the sounds of it as he draws closer.

“...and comb-over must be married to the one in the green, shower curtain dress,” she was saying.

“But he’s only paying attention to the woman in the purple dress.”

“I didn’t say they were happily married.”

Sir Humphrey looks back at the small conversation group they are making comment on, at least having the decency and sense not to point at their targets as they do so, accurate as their assessments may be.

“Hairpiece,” Bernard says, and he is nodding in the direction of the doors into the room when Sir Humphrey looks round.

“Oh gosh, is that on the right way round?”

“Is it even the right way up?” Bernard jokes, grinning and sharing it with his wife.

While the hairpiece in question is every bit atrocious enough to merit the comments, these two really are beyond the pale in saying these things. How could a civil servant normally so discreet, demure even, dare be so scandalous in a public place?

Sir Humphrey very nearly clears his throat, ready to give Bernard the verbal disciplining he so obviously requires, but...

Smiling, laughing, perfectly in sync – The two of them, Bernard and his wife, are just so happy together.

The whole sight is uncomfortable to him, but perhaps because it is so unusual to him. In nearly twenty years together shouldn’t the sight of Bernard happy have been more usual though?

The question echoes in his head as he walks away, and he stands by and plays his part listening to the mingling conversation groups be bored by each other until they have their turn to be the boring one, until this evening he finds himself walking away from all that and outside of the whole thing, his wife following him into the cool evening air.

“They’re so happy together, so in-tune,” he explains. “I could never be that to him. Why would he even say that he wanted to marry me? When he’s already so happy with her, and Hacker is both younger and more attractive when it comes to physical matters, why should he ever want me?”

She sighs and looks at him, forlornly tucked back against the outside of the building in this private, little space; a middle-aged man moping and bewailing himself like a teenager. “He has no idea what he does...” she tuts, glancing off as if to wherever the man in question is now. “You deserve better, Humphrey, not that I know that means anything with your feelings but...”

The anger on his behalf amuses him. “I always believed that you liked him, Evelyn.”

“I did, when he was making you happy.”

It’s sweet how awkward and fierce she is at once during these times. The cold air outside is making her shiver slightly though, he can see, so he moves closer and places his arms around her and his lips chastely on hers for being so kind.

Of course some lout has to come and wolf-whistle all over the moment, ruining the thing.

And of all louts it’s Bernard’s wife, her husband catching up with a bemused and then slightly panic-stricken expression as he recognises the other two.

Humphrey can’t seem to find any real anger inside of him at the intrusion though, and his wife looks to be the same as she pulls away to fold her arms and playfully taunt, “You’re simply jealous.”

“Oh yes?” Bernard’s wife rises to the challenge, pulling her husband into range.

In the hesitancy of him working out what is going on, Bernard doesn’t realise his wife has already initiated matters before him, leading to nothing but sharply bumped noses as their faces collide and then recoil in pain.

It’s enough to make Humphrey genuinely laugh, stifling it behind a hand as a true gentleman should but truly joyful all the same.

It’s hardly enough for all the anguish that has passed, but maybe it’s a start.

~#~

Bernard knows this week will not be an easy one when Monday morning begins with Jim, face in hands at his desk, asking, “Are there any wars coming, Bernard?”

“Um, not to my knowledge, Prime Minister.”

“Damn,” Jim swears. “I was hoping for something simpler and cheaper to organise than Lucy’s wedding.”

Bernard smiles appreciably. “Is it a big one?”

“A very big one. And Annie won’t let me refuse, she’s our only daughter after all,” Jim says. “Plus the French President went all out for his son’s wedding last year; I can’t let him beat me.”

A knocking heralds Sir Humphrey is here to begin the week’s meetings before Bernard has to reply to that, not that he ever really knows how to reply to these heads of government pissing contests anyway.

“Good morning, Prime Minister,” Sir Humphrey cheerfully begins, pausing as he registers the woeful state Jim is still in at his desk.

Bernard steps up to explain the situation, something that earns an amused expression and shaking of Sir Humphrey’s head.

“You’re normally so good at mindless pomp and ceremony, Prime Minister; I’m sure you’ll manage,” Sir Humphrey reassures him smoothly.

Before Jim can become too suspicious about the hidden insult in that, “Everyone loves a happy wedding; it’ll be great publicity,” Bernard adds.

“Yes,” Jim sighs, down to burying his face in just one hand now. “That’s the only thing keeping me going...” he says, and Bernard can almost hear Sir Humphrey’s eyes roll upwards in his head. “Anyway, nice to see the two of you getting along again.” Now Sir Humphrey instantly stiffens. “Got over your differences and _made up_?”

“I believe I made my disinclination about discussing such private matters quite clear,” Sir Humphrey huffs, files clasped in front of him formally.

It doesn’t need to be discussed for Jim to leeringly smirk at him anyway.

Bernard simply keeps quiet, taking notes and offering only what he is called upon for until he is called away into the private office by a request for admittance to Number 10.

Left behind, Sir Humphrey’s gaze stays anywhere but Jim’s face as he finishes up the daily political minutiae.

Eventually he is done, and requests his leave.

But of course their ever-meddling Prime Minister has to go and say, “Bernard’s all yours, if you want him.”

Sir Humphrey stops, and sharply exhales. “I see that I must talk to you about this to get you to desist.” Jim has the gall to be smirking well-meaningly when Sir Humphrey turns back to him. “How, precisely, do you expect me to consider him ‘mine’ when you insist on persistently meddling like this?”

“I’m only trying to help you both,” Jim defends. “Lord knows, you need it.” As he can see Sir Humphrey’s eyebrows knitting further into displeasure, “Look, I can stop... _engaging_ with Bernard,” he puts diplomatically, “but I can’t stop caring about him. That’s why I want to try and mend this between you.” The eyebrows are beginning to unknot, but Sir Humphrey is yet to be convinced. “You’re the one he really wants, and I have Annie. If I have to spell it out any more for you you’ll have to go fetch me a dictionary.”

He actually gets the smallest smirk of amusement at that. “You thought barging into my office to harass me in such a way was something that would help us?”

“Well...”

“I suppose I should expect such ham-fisted idiocy from a politician,” Sir Humphrey says, still amused and leaving Jim gaping for a moment. “While I... appreciate your intent,” he continues quickly, “I would appreciate it more if you would leave the matter to Bernard and I from now on.”

Jim considers that. “You’re talking again?” Sir Humphrey sighs a sigh that supposes they are, complicated as it is. “Well, in that case I guess I can leave it. But you better not upset Bernard again!” he says, pointing a finger.

“Me upset him?!” Sir Humphrey scoffs. “What about him upsetting me?”

“You were upset by it?” Jim picks up on the vulnerable admission. “Aw, you love him too!”

That, apparently, is the limit of what Sir Humphrey will discuss as his usual work formality comes over him again. He leaves at that point, Bernard still in the private office presumably, and thus Jim remains alone in here.

Finger to chin, he thinks for a long moment before reaching for his private phone line. “...Dorothy? Do you think you could come see me...” He pulls over his diary, “tomorrow afternoon? Privately? ...Oh no, it’s nothing politically important. It’s about Bernard and Humphrey, actually.”

After the formalities of ringing off, Jim sits back in his chair highly self-pleased.


	9. Mongrel

It finally happens so simply over a late evening’s sherry and work in the Cabinet Office.

Bernard’s invitation there had been for the purpose of actual work, but it becomes apparent Sir Humphrey is happiest when acting with ulterior motives as well as his surface ones. Soon Sir Humphrey is sat very close to him, both warmed by sherry, and the work is done sooner than expected with neither in any hurry to leave.

“Bernard...” Sir Humphrey doesn’t seem to know where to begin, but Bernard can tell from tone alone what they are finally breaching.

“Ah. Sir Humphrey.”

That earns him a hopeful stare he will know how to start this, but then only an amused rolling of the eyes that’s all he manages to contribute to the conversation. “I believe we need to discuss...” he trails off uncertainly, but it seems obvious enough between them. “Bernard, I must know how you expect me to believe that you really would marry me if you could, as you once said before.”

That it begins so forwardly shocks Bernard as much as the question itself. When he has finally gathered himself again, “What reasoning do you have for not believing it? You must know I wouldn’t be flippant about such a thing.”

“Because you’re so happily married to your wife.” And to pre-empt the obvious answer to that, “You have the Prime Minister for your... physical needs, ones I’m certain he’s better-suited for satisfying.”

“‘Better-suited’?” Bernard queries, especially given Sir Humphrey’s almost embarrassed state, before he thinks he can guess. “I suppose I am happily married, and I do also have Jim, yes,” he admits. “It would all be enough, satisfactory, even without you. That’s why I never asked for more before all this, because I thought it would be asking for too much, especially when I already had more than I deserved in the first place.” When Sir Humphrey looks at him he realises he hasn’t actually gotten round to answering the heart of the issue. “I’d give them up for you.”

“Why?” Sir Humphrey asks, so out of his depth for once.

“Because I love you.” Clichéd as it is, Bernard finds it’s the only answer he can give. “Don’t you... love me?” he finally asks.

He finds it blessing enough that Sir Humphrey doesn’t instantly reject him. Instead Sir Humphrey is thinking, eventually answering, “My wife said that I have feelings for you that night of the party, and I suppose that I do of some sort I find hard to categorise.” He can’t help his gaze going to the books and files lining one wall of his office, so different to all this. “I trust you, I enjoy your company, and I do care deeply about your wellbeing and opinion of me, among many other things. But if all those things sum total ‘love’...” Bernard wants to say something, to help this, but all the linguistics of denotations and connotations and so on somehow seem to fall short. “...I wish he weren’t right. Hacker,” Sir Humphrey clarifies as he continues in a bitter, little voice. “About my parents, and my not receiving or giving love...”

“As I said, you have people who love you,” Bernard counters. “Me, your wife... quite viciously so,” he notes with a touch of fear that makes Sir Humphrey chuckle. “You love her back, don’t you?”

“I... suppose so,” Sir Humphrey says as if the fact slightly surprises him. “I’m fond of her, certainly.”

Slightly amused, “Well, do you feel the same way about me?” Bernard asks.

“I’m fond of you, Bernard; I never would have denied that,” he says almost a little dryly, but the way Bernard smiles about it anyway, “Is that enough?”

“It’s more than enough,” Bernard thinks right now. And with Sir Humphrey finally in that better mood he’s been waiting for, “I’m really am very sorry, Sir Humphrey. About...” He would prefer not to say, with things going so well.

Thankfully Sir Humphrey can guess, and nods. “You did try to apologise before, although the fact you gave excuses along with that did little for the sincerity.”

Bernard winces, because it’s right. “You’re right. I apologise, I was... afraid, I suppose,” he admits, though it feels weak. “That and I’ve spent too many years hearing politicians apologise like that,” he jokes so Sir Humphrey can laugh and they can both begin putting all this behind them hopefully.

Neither house of theirs is free tonight but they agree the next available date. When the morning of that date comes, Bernard finds on his desk waiting for him an envelope marked ‘Personal’ so therefore still unread. Inside are the very short minutes of a meeting, something he finds strange at first glance, until he reads in unmistakable handwriting:

‘Item 1: A declaration was made that HA is fond of BW. The declaration was supported by all present.’

Most people send love letters. Sir Humphrey sends you love minutes instead, Bernard discovers.

~#~

Bernard is uneasy at the physical threshold of entering Sir Humphrey’s house this time; both the decades he has been doing this so frequently and the past couple months he hasn’t hold equal weight in his mind.

He eventually manages to because Sir Humphrey looks so uncomfortable about his unease, a sight that is too strange to let continue.

Once inside he is swept into helping prepare the evening meal, the focus on the technicalities of that halting any serious conversation for now. Sir Humphrey picks lasagne, something deliberately difficult and multi-layered and therefore perhaps fitting for this night.

Sir Humphrey only talks of work and the phatic minutiae of their home lives they’ve missed while apart over the eventual meal. Bernard wants to talk about more, should talk about more, but afraid of this tenuous restoration all crumbling down again he simply makes the small talk Sir Humphrey wishes to.

Obviously there’s so much mending to happen between them, but how even do two people mend something like this? Do they talk about what happened? Or not? Do they try and return things to how they were before? Or start all over again? Trust has to be rebuilt more than anything, Bernard imagines. The slow willingness to be vulnerable with each other once again and have that trust rewarded with each little gamble until eventually maybe they can regain what they have lost.

Or Sir Humphrey could push him back against the kitchen counter as soon as they are done washing up, kissing him almost desperately and already untucking his shirt. This is also a way of building trust again, Bernard supposes.

He is urged up to Sir Humphrey’s room, caught in embracing arms while still standing as all they do is kiss, stood beside the bed but instead Sir Humphrey is drawing this out as long as possible, moving so slowly to savour every last moment of this. And the same with every inch of Bernard’s skin he seems very intent on seeing once again, remapping places it’s been too long since he last touched.

Bernard is pressed back onto the bed, laid out to be looked upon thoroughly undressed. But almost as if he fears Bernard escaping, Sir Humphrey presses down over him with a desperate tiredness from waiting so long. Catching up in removing Sir Humphrey’s clothes is Bernard’s priority, but it has been far too long indeed.

Pulling away even to properly put aside important items like suits is not allowed, Sir Humphrey holding him too close. Perhaps it is the small time apart that makes it too apparent suddenly how old Sir Humphrey is; fit, yes, but so far now from the body Bernard first knew like this. The softer skin he runs his fingertips over, the slightly more pronounced bones of Sir Humphrey’s spine he ends up kissing his way up at one point. Where they could once go all night, now Bernard can already feel the tiredness and knows they both only have one ‘shot’ anymore.

It’s a reacquaintance physically, but there seems to be something else about the thoroughness with which they explore and touch one another, the firmness of the embrace Sir Humphrey holds him in, the achingly slow pace their hips roll together at – It’s not so much a ‘welcome back’ as a ‘don’t go’.

Sir Humphrey’s arms are still around him afterwards, when both are too tired to move or even say anything.

Bernard regains himself first, simply lying back where he is and watching Sir Humphrey’s resting face breathe softly but still a little strongly after their exertion. With the back of his hand against Sir Humphrey’s chest, the heart rate is still raised slightly. He realises deep brown eyes are staring at him now, but they close and sigh. “Sir Humphrey?” he asks.

“Is this enough for you?”

Does he mean physically or emotionally? In general perhaps? It’s strange for a civil servant to be so unclear. “If it’s what it takes to keep you in my life like this, I can make it enough,” he answers honestly, whatever Sir Humphrey might mean.

Now Sir Humphrey looks at him again; it’s one of the rare times Bernard has seen him look so sad, an emotion that seems to have always gone with any such intimations of love unfortunately. “You’re a fool, Bernard,” he says with no malice behind it, but his arms retracting hurt far more than any tone could. “From the first moment I saw you, to me you were one of those perfect youths the Greeks were right to enthuse about: Simple and beautiful for it, earnest, so unaware of yourself and forever youthful.” The compliments are strange indeed, but more so is whatever it feels they are building towards which he waits quietly for. “You always could have done far better than to settle for me.”

It strikes him silent for a moment, such self-deprecation that isn’t for the purpose of pleasing the ego of some politician or similar. He wants to disagree, to find the right words to correct Sir Humphrey that he is in actual fact far above Bernard’s league, but, “Why?” It’s always so much easier to hide behind questions.

Sir Humphrey seems almost amused, as if it should have been obvious at the same time he says, “I’ve kept a lot hidden from you as well over the years, Bernard,” a contrast he seems to appreciate. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have taken such umbrage at your own secrets then, you could say. But mine are from long ago and I wished to keep them that way.”

“You mean like the Scottish lease business?” Sir Humphrey is sitting up by now and Bernard joins him.

At least by now the mention of such things merely amuses Sir Humphrey instead of mortifying him. “No, more pertinent to you and I, personal matters.” Bernard sits and waits, because he presumes the normal thing would be that Sir Humphrey intends to tell him these secrets now. He is stared at instead, judged rather disconcertingly, before Sir Humphrey sighs as he looks away. “You were able to guess that my relationship with my parents is far from an open and supportive one.”

“Ah.” Bernard starts to catch a drift of what sort of conversation this will be.

“My father always disparaged my effeminate behaviours and presentation,” Sir Humphrey begins, and Bernard has to frown. “I had learnt to temper them by the time we first met, but I still am given to becoming far too emotional at times you have seen for example, the care I take in dressing myself.” Still Bernard is frowning as he tries to see it, which now peeves Sir Humphrey into frowning too. “I am! Or, by my father’s reckoning at least.” Sinking back into that bitter weariness, “He was an army man, a high-ranked officer behind a desk of course. But he still to this day considers Cabinet Secretary an unfit position for a man.”

“The highest ranking Civil Servant position in the country?”

“To him it is too intellectual, still just a ‘secretary’ position and all such positions are the work of women.” Bernard is careful to keep his frown to himself this time, suddenly understanding a lot more of certain gender disagreements they have but also trying to fathom such an awful environment to grow up in. “I often think I rose this high just to try and prove myself to him, to fill the void of approval I never received from them,” he says, shaking his head.

“They do say many gay men are motivated by poor relationships with their father,” Bernard remarks in thought, which doesn’t help the situation at all.

“Oh, it motivates you, certainly,” Sir Humphrey picks up bitterly. He hesitates before going on, turning aside completely with his arms wrapped about himself. “After such a childhood, at university I took freedom as a chance to deliberately oppose the sort of man my father wanted me to be.” He worries his thumb between his front teeth, before admitting, “I do not believe there is a way to convey the following in language that is not crass...” Bernard really tries not to be too intrigued, especially when the necessary prospect of being gauche seems to pain Sir Humphrey so much. “I was- I sought out the company of many men like us back then, Bernard. You were aware of the secret clubs for us in Oxford, yes?”

“Uhh... No,” Bernard had to admit, always being the odd one.

“Well, they were for male students like us, generally the dignified who had too much to risk,” Sir Humphrey continued. “I suppose I was... well-known among them, during my time there.” Bernard feels the blood rush into his cheeks as he blushes. “I would... orally pleasure them if I deemed them sufficiently endowed to satisfy me. I wouldn’t allow them to touch me, aside from what was necessary; I always found it made me feel dirtied.” Though still blushing furiously, Bernard tries to compose himself and process these bizarre words to hear from Sir Humphrey’s mouth, now the momentary lapse in decorum seems over. “You were the first man I didn’t feel that way with,” he adds in a murmur, just as Bernard thought he could cope with all this.

“...Gosh,” is all Bernard can think to say to any of it, and he supposes it’s the characteristicness of it for him that makes Sir Humphrey laugh.

“It failed to make me happy, as such youthful misbehaviour often does in the cold light of day,” Sir Humphrey resumes; “as you once put yourself concerning the Prime Minister, the whole thing made me feel desired but not loved.” Ah. Bernard can indeed relate to that. “I was trying to embrace being a failure to my father to cope with it, I suppose, but at the end of it all I was only ashamed.”

And no wonder he prefers the clinical world of suits, civil service paperwork and talking over physical or emotional activity. “You don’t think this one will also come out, this skeleton in your cupboard, do you?” Bernard thinks to check, but the discussion is calm enough he already suspects the answer.

Indeed Sir Humphrey shakes his head. “As I said, many of the others I was with were similarly destined for lofty seats in society and have just as much to lose now. That and no names were used, plus we rarely bothered getting a good look at one another’s faces.” Bernard tries to imagine such a world, such a Sir Humphrey particularly.

This ought to be the moment he says something comforting, something that sweeps away the shame and failure still obviously felt. Perhaps it’s because he still has too many questions that he can’t find any answers to all this, only stare hopelessly until Sir Humphrey finally glances at him once again and is forced to be the one to speak.

“Well?”

“What?”

Though Sir Humphrey has already turned away, the irritation at such obtuseness is still obvious. “Aren’t you going to leave?”

“Why?”

Only more irritated now, “Perhaps you could attempt to answer a question rather than simply adding to the pile, Bernard.”

“Oh. Yes.” He really should, shouldn’t he? “...I don’t understand,” is his answer though. “Why would I want to leave?” He checks the bedside clock but he can’t remember any appointed time he needs to be anywhere else.

“Aren’t you... perturbed, disgusted?” Sir Humphrey asks, and after Bernard stares at him blankly for long enough, “With me?”

“Oh!” Bernard finally understands. “Why would I be? As you said, it was long ago. And it’s not really that much worse than what I was doing while at Oxford,” he answers too easily.

He’s never seen Sir Humphrey make a face like this before, so struck from left field at the same time he isn’t sure whether to believe what he’s hearing and also morbidly intrigued. “...Do I even want to know?” he finally asks, dry bemusement pricking the tension that had inflated in the room.

“It wasn’t anything that extreme,” Bernard says. “I used to sleep with our college’s librarian who was about twice my age at the time; he used to say that whenever I wasn’t in a lesson or in the library itself I was upstairs warming his bed,” he remembers fondly, continuing into, “I also tried to proposition my Greek tutor as well but he turned me down. I had a couple of other more normal relationships with other male students my age too but I was never able to enjoy them in the same way as my first; I suppose I prefer older men.” Now he gets to enjoy the sight of Sir Humphrey staring at him with the same utterly confounded and wordless expression Bernard himself must have worn before. “Oh, when I was sleeping with our college’s librarian he liked to take a lot of photos of me in, well, not in anything,” he also thinks to mention. “I imagine he might still have them; a lot of them turned out rather well.”

He is treated to boggled silence for a long moment. Sir Humphrey’s eventual reply to the whole thing is, “We’re going to Oxford to get those photos, Bernard.”

Bernard can’t help smirking.

“Not like that,” Sir Humphrey tuts. “So you can’t ruin your career if these photos ever come out- I mean, honestly, at least I had the sense to wear make-up if I ever thought my identity could potentially be compromised.” Though Bernard raises an eyebrow at that to ask, “You’re almost more trouble than you’re worth,” Sir Humphrey scolds fondly, finally relaxing back against the pillows.

“Almost?”

“Almost.”

If Bernard had a tail it would very much be wagging.

Sensing the almost canine joy, “I suppose my other dogs also enjoy keeping me company in bed when I allow.” While Bernard cocks his head blankly, and wonders if maybe he should have checked the bed for dog fur before lying down, “My pet dog was my only true source of love growing up,” Sir Humphrey continues. “I can’t help wondering at times if it’s not a resemblance to that purity and simple love that makes me feel so different around you to others, Bernard.”

“...Thank you?” he thinks he should say, probably.

“A strange compliment, I know,” Sir Humphrey concedes. “But I’ve been considering the fact I don’t really place you amongst my friends, Bernard; I don’t talk with you as I do with them. I actually... relax with you, and I don’t know what to call that.”

“Love?” Bernard suggests, too hopefully he knows.

This time, for the first time, Sir Humphrey actually smiles in response to such a thing. But he still goes on anyway, “In my life I have had people I enjoy the company of such as Arnold and Jumbo, and people I can be intimate with, in various ways. You are the only person who has ever been in both categories, aside from my wife.”

Bernard understands what he means by it. “Crikey.” It may not have included the word ‘love’ but it was practically there, between the words, in the spaces. “Are we... all right? Again?” he tries to clarify, unsure how to ask and if he dares to.

“All right?” Sir Humphrey thinks on it. “...Yes. I think we’re... all right,” he concludes.

Which for now is more than enough.


	10. Moppet

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess who got their shit together and finally finished this!
> 
> Maybe this chapter is a little too happy an ending for this story, but right now in the midst of this pandemic I don't think that hurts.

Jim observes the two of them, how they stand so close going over the same file, how one always know exactly the subsection reference the other will need, how the two share a withering look whenever they can’t appreciate Jim’s cutting-edge sense of humour, and he smiles.

Sir Humphrey frowns. “What are you grinning about, Prime Minister?” he asks, perhaps fairly given the less-than-encouraging welfare report they are currently discussing.

“What, am I not allowed to smile without written civil service permission?” Jim plays back facetiously, another one of those jokes his officials aren’t sharp enough to appreciate. “I’m just... happy.”

“About what?”

“About you two, if you must know,” Jim says, and he expects the disdainful regret that follows on Sir Humphrey’s face. “All patched up, hey?” Sir Humphrey shoots Bernard a ‘don’t answer him’ look. “Good. Then I can put into action the surprise I had Dorothy prepare.”

Now Sir Humphrey looks horrified, and turns to Bernard anew with a ‘Did you know about this?’ look.

Bernard is equally thrown though, and very apprehensive after Jim’s last ‘helpful’ surprise.

Reeling back to Jim with a new shock, “Does that mean that imposs- that political advisor of yours knows about...?” Sir Humphrey gestures at Bernard and himself.

“Oh yes. Would’ve been rather hard to plan it if I didn’t tell her,” Jim takes a joy in answering. “But don’t worry, I’m sure Dorothy can be trusted with this.”

Sir Humphrey takes quite a deep inhale as if he’s about to begin on that, but decides to use it on the more important, “And what is this surprise that you have prepared, Prime Minister?”

“You’ll have to wait,” Jim enthuses, “and be surprised, Humphrey.” Completely ignoring the irate and terrified looks he is receiving, “Back to this report then...”

~#~

“He said he was going to stop meddling!” Sir Humphrey scorns, storming back into his Cabinet Office with Bernard in tow.

“Ah. Hm,” is all Bernard can offer.

“And to bring that damn woman into it as well!”

“Yes,” Bernard agrees meekly, for to bring attention to himself might also bring blame.

“The way _he _is it won’t be long until every newspaper in the country knows about us!” Sir Humphrey continues, fuming about. “And what are we meant to do then?”

“Elope?” Bernard offers, foolish as it is to joke and especially about that.

Sir Humphrey turns back to him finally, only fondly irritated at the usual level of unhelpful humour. “That would be tantamount to admitting it, my dear Bernard. The only course, in situations such as this, is denial – Pretend the Prime Minister is making the whole thing up as a joke in very poor taste when she talks to us. Do you understand?”

“Um. Yes. But...” Although his objection is far from welcome, Bernard thinks it only fair to say, “I’m really not a very good liar, Sir Humphrey. I think she might see through me.”

He’s surprised that Sir Humphrey simply sighs, settling into his chair. “Yes. She did manage to... She tricked me into revealing... certain details about myself,” he admits in a petulantly quiet tone. “Damn and blast...”

“It might not be all that bad,” Bernard tries to hope. “It depends on what the surprise is.”

“When has Hacker ever surprised you with something good?” Sir Humphrey asks dryly.

“Well...” Bernard decides to stay trailed off. “Perhaps whatever it is will be over quickly?” is the best he can suggest and hope for. Sir Humphrey makes a small noise of wearily agreeing with that. “Whatever it is, I don’t think Jim would out us with it. Neither is he likely to have gone to too much effort or expense considering his daughter’s wedding is upcoming.”

That seems to be logic Sir Humphrey can get behind. “It’s likely something for his own, and her, amusement at our expense. Some gag gift or other.”

“Hopefully,” Bernard agrees.

~#~

“Honestly, it’s royal weddings the press all make such a ridiculous fuss over,” Sir Humphrey tuts as he unlocks his front door to let them in. “He’ll be lucky to get more than a couple of inches in the middle of the Sundays.”

“He was trying to get the BBC to broadcast it live at one point,” Bernard says. “Apparently Miss Hacker wasn’t very pleased with the idea of her wedding being used as a publicity stunt for her father’s government.”

“How sensible; she must get that from her mother,” Sir Humphrey comments, hanging his coat up and patting his thigh to see which dogs are awake.

He jumps slightly with surprise when, “So this is what you two talk about when you’re alone,” his wife is the one that heeds his call instead, coming into the entrance hall doorway.

“I-I thought you were going to be out. Why- It is Wednesday, isn’t it?” Sir Humphrey looks between the other two present in confusion, Bernard’s face a mirror of his.

His wife is smiling though. “I was. But something more important came up.” She beckons for them both to follow her through the lounge and then kitchen, to the back door and out into their large garden where-”

“Oh no,” Sir Humphrey mutters aside to Bernard at the sight of the Prime Minister here of all places, and having brought that damn woman into his one sanctuary as well.

What makes it confusing though is the presence, along with those two, of Mrs. Hacker and Bernard’s wife as well. Currently caught like a rabbit in the headlights, when Bernard looks to his wife she comes forward to grab him by the sleeve and lead them both to where the others are waiting.

“Surprised to see me here, Humpy?” Jim takes a pleasure in greeting him with.

“A little surprised you somehow managed to get here faster than Bernard and I did from Number 10,” he comments, since that doesn’t seem physically possible. “Otherwise I have grown quite accustomed to your meddling of late. Is there any chance we can get whatever horror you’re about to inflict upon us over with as quickly as possible?”

“Now, don’t be like that,” Jim smirks, practically preening. “I’ve put a lot of work into this.”

“_I’ve _put a lot of work into this,” Dorothy corrects him.

“No one asked you to,” Sir Humphrey makes a point of telling her.

“Jim asked me to,” she volleys back smoothly.

“Well, no one asked him to.”

Undeterred, “I must say I did enjoy hearing all about your secrets from Jim,” she continues. “Your life could give _Coronation Street_ a run for its money.”

“As if I’ve ever watched that,” he wants to make a point of before turning to Jim once again, voice weary. “What are you here for, Prime Minister?”

Proudly puffing himself up, “You’re getting married,” Jim delivers.

“I am?”

“To whom?” Bernard asked.

“To you, of course,” Jim answers him.

The baffling idea seems to tick over in both their brains for a long moment, while all others present look to each other with a glee that suggests they’re all in on it. Eventually Sir Humphrey is the one to find the words first that, “But we’re both men.”

“I know,” Jim says. “That’s why I had to call Dorothy in.”

Sir Humphrey looks to her, worried about what strange territory they might be about to get into.

“To find the necessary legal loopholes, or make them in this case,” she explains. “Given Jim’s power as Prime Minister he has the authority to get around certain normal limitations so we can, in effect, legally marry you. I mean, it won’t stand up in court when it comes to claiming each other’s pensions come death and benefits like that, but it’ll confer the legal status part at least.” Since Bernard looks far too nerdily eager, “I’ll show the exact particulars later.”

“There’s also the fact we’re both already legally married,” Sir Humphrey points out next. “Unless you’re planning on submitting and paying for divorce proceedings for both of us.”

“No problem,” Jim assures. “Dorothy came up with a way to deal with that too.”

“That was the easy part actually,” she admits. “By English law, a marriage can be voided at any time by either party so long as it’s never been consummated.” That makes both men blush, and she presses to check, “I trust that is the case, yes?”

Sir Humphrey and his wife share the shortest glance, all their mortification can bear, before assenting.

Bernard and his wife, “Gosh.”

“It’s a good thing we didn’t in the end then,” they exhale.

“Bernard?” Sir Humphrey asks.

“We almost, a couple of times,” he very sheepishly admits, “but we didn’t.”

Sir Humphrey lets out quite the rough sigh. “I think you would benefit from being taken to the vet to be ‘fixed’, the more I find out about you.”

Bernard has the good grace to smile very apologetically.

Looking at both of their wives, “Then, the two of you support this?” Sir Humphrey checks.

“We’ll still be married to the eyes of the rest of the world,” his wife answers. “I’m willing, if this is what you want.”

And Bernard’s wife nods she feels the same way.

The two men are therefore left to turn to each other finally, trying to ignore all the waiting eyes firmly fixed on them and utterly expectant.

Bernard tries to hold his nerve, tries to hold Sir Humphrey’s gaze hopefully, but he can’t help the eye contact breaking as he feels the need to look away, hands fidgeting and posture shrinking submissively.

Sir Humphrey considers him for a long moment, but after long enough looking at Bernard can’t help but softly smile and reach out to gesture him to look back up, even if Bernard has never been perfect at this. “I think I would like that.”

Bernard lights up, blushes, and goes, “Gosh.”

“Yes?”

Bernard simply nods very enthusiastically.

“All right!” Jim claps his hands, then ushers forward. “Go get them changed.”

“Changed?” Sir Humphrey asks, their wives grabbing a wrist of their respective husband to lead them away.

“You can hardly get married in any old suit,” his wife answers.

“Don’t worry,” Bernard’s wife adds; “we didn’t spend a lot on them.”

It all begins to blur at that point, the surprise cumulatively growing too much to do more than let themselves be taken into separate upstairs rooms, new suit boxes thrust into their hands. Too many years of practice dressing in suits make it too easy to put them on as directed, ready to be taken back down and out into the garden again.

Nerves having savaged his fumbling fingers, Bernard is ready second and comes back down to the sight of Sir Humphrey shining like the night sky in a suit combination of black, gold and silver watching his dogs ‘betray’ him by rolling over to let Mrs. Wainwright pet their tummies.

Sir Humphrey is the first to turn his attention away and notice Bernard, needing to be pushed forward to get over his anxiety, walking down the garden towards him in black, red and blue, looking almost noble and powerful. “You should dress like that more often,” he mentions as Bernard finally joins him at his side, earning a very mortified smile as Bernard fiddles with his tie knot.

“I feel over-dressed...”

His wife’s hand comes in at that point, knocking him away from his fidgeting. “I know we didn’t dress up for our wedding but you ought to look good for your real one.”

Now Sir Humphrey can almost himself feel himself blushing.

Luckily he is saved by Jim being thoroughly himself and taking too much joy in the pomp of being able to begin the fabled lines, “We are gathered here today... What comes next?” he turns to Dorothy.

With a sigh she hands over a prepared sheet already in her hands for him. “Only the highlighted parts are legally necessary.”

“Don’t pad it out too much, Jim,” Mrs. Hacker pipes up. “I’m getting tired standing around out here.”

“I’ll pad it if I want to,” he jokes back briefly, clearing his throat to begin again.

He’s soon so into the ceremony of it all that he doesn’t even notice the conversation going on underneath his words, Sir Humphrey’s wife asking, “I only thought he was this bad on TV. Is he this bad at work?”

“Always.”

“He’s this bad at home,” Mrs. Hacker adds.

“I knew I should have edited this down...” Dorothy laments too late now.

Eventually Jim reaches the point though of asking, “Who gives this man to be married?” while gesturing at Sir Humphrey, waking his congregation up again.

“That isn’t legally necessary,” Sir Humphrey points out in accusation to Dorothy; “it’s not even conventional.”

“You always claim to be such a feminist, Humpy. I thought you’d appreciate it,” she takes a pleasure in replying.

Before he can reply though, “I do,” his wife says.

Reading from his sheet closely for this part, “You annul and void your marriage on the grounds of a lack of consummation?” Jim asks.

Evelyn looks to her husband, who is waiting entirely on her. It’s easy to sense neither is the sort for this type of thing, and she simply settles for, “I’ve always been happy married to you, even though I’ll confess I didn’t expect to be. I think you’ve been happy as well, Humphrey, but I want this for you.” She goes to continue, but pauses first to lean in and kiss him sweetly. “Yes,” she answers Jim.

Jim looks as if he’s about to make a moment of it but the warning look Sir Humphrey shoots him convinces Jim to continue on, “Who gives this man to be married?” for Bernard now.

“I do,” his wife answers easily.

“You annul and void your marriage on the grounds of a lack of consummation?”

Jo turns to Bernard who’s as skittish and obedient as ever waiting. “I’m not making a soppy scene of it like she did,” his wife says though. “Yes,” she says, before anyone can make a fuss, pulling Bernard into the hug of a friend. It lingers though, past that, and he is squeezed tight one final time before being pushed away. “You’re his problem now,” she jokes to cover it.

“Rings?” Jim prompts next.

“That’s me,” Mrs. Hacker finally gets her turn, opening her purse.

“You didn’t need to buy us rings,” Bernard objects humbly.

“We didn’t,” Annie says; “the place doing the rings for Lucy’s wedding was only too happy to be able to advertise their link to Jim, God knows why.”

“Thank you, Annie,” he manages dryly as she hands over the rings to the right respective recipient.

Indeed they’re only simply gold bands, the one in Sir Humphrey’s hands for Bernard with a slightly reddish tint while the other is plain white gold.

“Get on with your vows then,” Jim says. “Bernard, you go first; I’m going to need to prepare myself for Humphrey’s...” He drops his script on a nearby garden table dragged over for the occasion, picking up the alcohol waiting on it to pour himself a drink.

“Aren’t you going to-?” Bernard gestures at the script. “What am I meant to-?”

“Just say your true feelings,” Annie encourages.

Jim scoffs, “They’re civil servants, they can’t,” and gets a heel jammed into his foot in chastisement.

Bernard really tries to look up for this, to meet Sir Humphrey, but how expectant the awaiting gaze is scares him away as ever. “Gosh...” The characteristic word prompts a few laughs, which does something to ease the moment as he flails around verbally. “I-I really don’t believe I deserve you, especially after... recent events,” he says in a near mumble he’s so embarrassed to be the centre of attention right now. “I’ve never been able to understand why you like me, and forgive me, and trust me. Everyone says I’m a high flier but I don’t think so, not in this area of life at least. I’m not good enough at this, for you. Everything you’ve given me has always been more than enough and, um... crikey.” He can feel himself slipping back into dithering again and looks around, hoping for a lifeline to be thrown.

“It’s generally more appealing to focus on the positives than so mercilessly self-deprecate,” Sir Humphrey says, letting Bernard off the hook he’s said enough at least. “Your sentiments are very touching, however.”

“Did you just performance review his vows?” Dorothy has to question.

Before Sir Humphrey can retort, “Oh, let’s just get on with it,” Jim cuts in, gesturing at Bernard’s hands.

After quite a moment, “Oh!” Bernard realises to take the ring in his hand and slip it onto Sir Humphrey’s finger.

Sir Humphrey takes a moment to admire how surprisingly well it fits, his wife’s doing perhaps, before taking his inhale ready. “Bernard...” He actually thinks for a moment. “I don’t suppose you remember some time ago now I taught you how one can exercise power over someone when you have something they want; I think I have always been holding back from giving you what you want, what you deserve, because I needed to have that power over you. Because it scared me, the idea of you leaving, when you’re the thing that brings the fresh air and freedom into my life I’ve always needed. You’re very different to all other civil servants, and I don’t know what it says about myself that I like that. But it’s something I’ve made peace with now, that I need to have you as a part of my life in order to be truly satisfied.”

He gestures for Bernard to raise his hand, an act Bernard seems to be having problem with so staggered and embarrassed by those words, but- “...Is that it?!” Jim asks.

Sir Humphrey turns to him flatly. “What do you mean?”

“It was so short! You’re never this succinct,” is Jim’s rather insulting point. “I was expecting you to go on for at least five or ten minutes, like you usually do at work.”

“I am perfectly capable of being succinct when it suits the situation, such as the present instance where the idiomatic assertion ‘less is more’ could well be said to apply when it comes to the conveyance of such psychical matters which could otherwise easily be given to histrionics-”

“Now _that_ was what I was expecting,” Jim interrupts again.

Sir Humphrey has clearly reached that point at which he finds the best and simplest course of action to be ignorance of Jim in favour of gesturing for Bernard’s hand once more.

After the ring is slipped on Bernard has to retract his hand to inspect, the surreal new adornment that really is there. Sir Humphrey looks to be finding the moment just as strange in his own way, all so far from the world of civil service and paperwork they know how to cope with.

“Well then,” Jim interrupts in great cheer, “I now pronounce you husband and husband.” He nods expectantly, then adding, “Go on.”

“What?” Sir Humphrey asks.

“You’re meant to kiss at this point,” Jim spells out, if it’s that necessary.

“No!” Sir Humphrey and Bernard both find themselves objecting as one, far too proper and also embarrassed.

“Aw, come on!”

“Why don’t we have a drink to celebrate?” Annie skilfully intervenes instead, taking the open bottle on the table to begin pouring out glasses while Dorothy smoothly moves into passing them round.

Everyone soon has a glass for the formality of a simple toast and then drink, some prepared food brought out from the kitchen to accompany the affair.

Bernard finds the alcohol barely registering over the jittery buzz the whole evening has already given him, and he would guess he’s not the only one from Sir Humphrey’s declining of a second glass. Jim is dominating the conversation, with Annie and Dorothy reining him in and the two... well ex-wives he supposes now finally getting to know the people they have heard so many tales about. It allows the two who ought to be at the centre of this to stay quiet instead, merely listening and trying to emotionally catch up with the surprise sprung on them; civil servants do not deal well with surprises at the best of time, let alone personal ones like this.

Luckily not much alcohol was brought and split between the seven of them there is not enough for Jim to get more than mildly drunk. The celebration has moved inside by that point, when Jim drops onto the sofa arm beside the newly married couple and two of the dogs that have climbed on to join them. “So, where are you going to go for your honeymoon?”

“Honeymoon?” Bernard repeats, brain unable to deal with yet another surprise consideration right now.

“You just got married,” Jim grins, slightly leeringly.

“I hardly think such a thing is necessary,” Sir Humphrey answers, “nor advisable considering the attention two men holidaying together might attract.”

“I could pull a few strings for you,” Jim offers.

“That would be even _less_ discreet,” Sir Humphrey judges. “Besides, we hardly have the time with everything going on at work right now-”

“You’re going on a honeymoon if I have to force you,” Jim cuts in strongly.

And Sir Humphrey smiles as the plan is revealed with that. “Perhaps during the upcoming recess-”

“That’s months away! You have to go sooner, it’s tradition.”

“I really don’t think-”

“And for at least a week-”

“Prime Minister, we’re not going,” Sir Humphrey says.

“You can’t just decide that for Bernard!” Jim retorts, throwing an arm around Bernard’s shoulders beside him and upsetting the dog on Bernard’s lap. “Bernard, you want a honeymoon, don’t you?”

“Uhh...”

“Lots of opportunity for s-”

“I’m all right, Prime Minister!” Bernard answers hastily, leaning away and glad as the dog climbs out of his lap and onto Jim, pushing Jim off the edge of the sofa.

Slightly tipsy as he is, Jim manages to end up on the carpet and attract the attention of Mrs. Hacker in doing so, who comes over to sigh over the states he gets himself into now covered in dog fur down both trouser legs.

“I’m not done with this,” Jim warns as he’s led away, the motion that seems to encourage the rest present to think about getting going soon as well.

“You’re going?” Sir Humphrey asks in surprise to Evelyn, given it is her house as well.

“I will still be living here,” she tells him. “But tonight I thought you would appreciate an evening alone.”

“I tried to get her to come spend this weekend with me,” Jo joins in, “so you two could have that time together as well, but for some reason she said no.”

“One can only wonder why,” Sir Humphrey says dryly.

They bid goodbye to the others, Sir Humphrey having one final unsuccessful attempt at getting his dogs to go attack or at least muddy Dorothy, and then are left standing there together alone in the entrance hall, married.

Well, “Do you think we’re really married?” Bernard asks, having not had a chance to look at the technicality papers Dorothy left him.

“I really couldn’t say, Bernard,” Sir Humphrey answers. “The whole thing was more about the spirit of the thing than the legality anyway, I would imagine.”

“Ah. Yes...”

Since that sounds far from the most positive acceptance of that, “Do you... Are you regretting it?” Sir Humphrey asks.

“Oh no!” Bernard is quick to honestly answer. “I simply... wasn’t expecting to ever get my wish, I suppose.”

Sir Humphrey smiles at the characteristicness of it, but can’t help a little sadness sliding into it too. “It never will count, in the eyes of the public.”

“No. And it’s been a rather... fraught journey to get here.”

“We wasted a lot of time, in many ways.” He sighs, reaching back and rubbing his neck. “I feel we ought to be happier about this.”

Bernard chuckles. “Perhaps we will be in six months, after we’ve had time to properly sift the facts, have half a dozen meetings about it and put up a feasibility paper.”

Typical as the joke is, “Yes, perhaps it does just need to time to sink in.” But time is not something they have right now in one way, the clock in the hall showing the hour to be getting on. “I suppose we should retire?” he suggests.

“Um, yes,” Bernard agrees, unable not to blush at what they both know is implied in that.

Sir Humphrey walks to the stairs to lead the way, pausing at the bottom though to suggest, “Perhaps we could have another go finally, at reversing our usual positions,” in heavy euphemism.

It takes Bernard a moment to catch on that he means tonight, for the first time, he wants Bernard to, “Oh!” He fidgets and fusses, trying not to grin too like a schoolboy.

Sir Humphrey rolls his eyes anyway. “Are you coming?”

“Ah. Yes.” Bernard goes to follow, but thinks first, “Oh, Humphrey, did you remember to feed the dogs?”

“I fed them earlier when-” Sir Humphrey pauses, actually spinning round in place on the stairs. “What did you just call me?”

Bernard pauses as well at the bottom, looking up just the few steps he is ahead. “Ah, I was thinking it seems rather odd, to continue calling you ‘_Sir_ Humphrey’- Of course I’ll still do it at work. But now we’re married and all... Should I not?” he worries.

Sir Humphrey stares down at him for moment, then tuts, “It certainly took you long enough,” causing Bernard to smile and then himself, more than satisfied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As for the name thing at the end, Bernard refers to Humphrey by just his first name like that at times in the novelisation (that’s set years after) so I always found that interesting why he came to see himself as Humphrey’s equal one day.
> 
> I have to give a big thanks to LRRH particularly for all her comments during the writing of this which various parts wouldn't exist without. And an equal thanks to everyone who has been commenting on every chapter during the journey - It's been so great in such a tiny fandom.
> 
> -Some extra stuff-
> 
> So at one point this was going to turn into a three-way relationship fic, but that fell by the wayside as the plot went where it did. I had a couple of little parts I was going to use:  
Jim would stand up to Humphrey in bed. Jim says Humphrey doesn’t know how to handle a man standing up to him. Humphrey says he does know how to handle a man standing up to him, reaching out to handle Jim’s erection. Jim says that’s one of his worst jokes ever, worthy of Bernard. Bernard is just there like, oi.  
Or a threesome where both Humphrey and Bernard start out being submissive to Jim but somehow end up fucking him and Jim realising this feels just like work.
> 
> There was also going to be a final chapter that had followed things all the way to after Bernard’s death, since he’s the only one still alive for the novelisation:  
Bernard one day wakes up at the DAA office already dressed, very confused. He finds Jim's diary at least which is something. But it’s messy and every day has ‘Lunch with Churchill’ for as far as the diary goes on endlessly (no dates on pages)  
He goes into the main room to ask if Jim has been filling it out himself. Jim is very glad to see him, still insists on being called PM, and mentions his diary sec isn’t here yet (hasn’t died yet) so he had to.  
Bernard has sort of realised he’s dead. He abolished the DAA just before stepping down as Cabinet Secretary to preserve it as it was; it would never again be as good as it was under Humphrey after all. So makes sense why it’s here.  
Humphrey eventually joins them and his first words to Bernard are that he’s late (in a couple of senses, since that can also mean 'dead' in English) before arguing with Jim like ever. Humphrey wants more people here – They don’t even have anyone who can type as Mrs MacKay isn’t here yet. Jim says Humphrey will be out on the clouds taking pot-shots at civil servants with a sniper rifle at this rate to get recruitment up. Humphrey complains they still only have a skeleton staff (which seems rather morbid right now)  
Humphrey eventually leaves and Bernard goes after him a bit confused about the whole place and what’s going on. Humphrey laments that oh Bernard, you always were naive. Oh well, he’ll have to show him around again, Humphrey supposes. Bernard fears everything has reset, but then he notices Humphrey still has his wedding ring he was buried with and phew, everything’s all right.
> 
> In light of Derek's death while this story was being written though I really didn't feel like writing any further and touching on the subject of death in this. 
> 
> Anyway, that's it! I don't have any more plans to write Yes Minister fic again for a long while now - I've been wanting to switch fandoms for ages but I didn't want to leave this story unfinished. This time I'm going to learn my lesson about not uploading fics until they're finished - so don't expect any more than this, sorry. I am glad to have completed a fic for this fandom though, particularly a long and developed one which it's always been sorely lacking in.
> 
> Thanks again for reading! If you enjoy my work, here's my [Carrd](https://milfeirn.carrd.co/).


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